Supervillain Affair
by JMK758
Summary: Tim McGee returns for this year's Greater East Coast Comic Art Convention with two good things: a new wife to share it with and the certainty that last year's drama cannot possibly happen again.
1. Too Many

This is my 30th NCIS Mystery and the 10th of my 3rd Season. With the year of story time completed and our return to the Hotel Meritz and the Greater East Coast Comic Art Convention, we've come full circle since 'The Superheroine Affair', hence the title of this story.  
Belisarius Productions owns NCIS and NCIS:LA and the usual Disclaimers apply. I own such original characters as have not appeared on either series.  
For a full list of all Mysteries, One-Shots and Side Stories, please see my Profile.  
The numerous Affairs in my series are homage to David McCallum.

The Supervillain Affair  
by JMK758  
Prologue

Friday Afternoons are worse than any other times for sad duties such as this, Doctor Donald Mallard thinks as he uses the silver door of his store room as a mirror with which to adjust the somber black bow tie above his somber black suit.

These occasions are sad enough in the most hopeful times, but when hope is distant and death too immediate, the future seems as dim and distorted as his own image.

'I have lost too many friends,' he thinks, 'and yet I go on, seeking answers for their deaths and justice for those who cannot speak for themselves.

'Perhaps that's why I'm so maudlin, because this time I can give good news to no one.'

Looking into the slightly distorted image - it's a door, not a mirror - is too much like looking into his past and knowing he can offer no help. Abby had appealed to him in her lab office two weeks ago with such faith...

ooo

She'd clasped her hands together in a begging posture. "Ducky would you do me a favor I really really need this."

"Well, when you put it like that, how could I resist?"

"You remember my friend Dawn Caldwell?"

It had taken a moment; she was no customer of his. "Oh yes, we met this past July." It's by no means his favorite memory. "She's a kindergarten teacher, as I recall." The young woman had been brutally raped, and she had been the first of many, a number made unconscionably high by the intricacies of lawful jurisdiction.

"Twenty years ago I used to baby-sit for her. She was six and I was twelve."

"A daunting chasm at that age, a meaningless blink now."

"Well, I'm going to see her in Jefferson Parish. We're going to catch up and she video-chatted me a few days ago and I'm really worried she's acting strangely I can see there's something wrong but I can't put my finger on it and I was wondering if you could Psychologically Autopsy her and tell me what's wrong my mind is so stressed out I can't read–" Ducky held up his hand to stem the verbal deluge.

"I shall endeavor to do my best. What do you have for me?"

"I record all my vid-chats, you never know what can be important."

"Well, if you would call up the footage, we'll give it a go."

x

Abby quickly turned to her computer, typing as though afraid he might change his mind. "I've set the system for split screen. Please help me."

He was surprised she'd appeal again. Her distress was like a floodwater that rushed over and decimated her landscape. "Of course."

Abby pressed a final button, the screen came alight with herself on the right and a 26 year old blonde woman on the left and a cacophony of music in each of their backgrounds, Classical for Miss Caldwell, noise - sorry, 'Brain Death' - for Abby.

Dawn Caldwell was actually thinner than he recalled, he'd hoped it was a mismemory on his part and settled in to watch the footage.

x

"_Sunshine_!" the Abby on the screen exclaimed.

"Hi, mom."

Abby adopted an old-lady gravel. "Don't you 'mom' me, you young whipper-snapper."

"Haven't snapped a whip in my life," Dawn countered with a bright grin. In the background Bach's Double Violin Concerto in D minor, 2nd movement' commenced, so screen-Abby used her remote to turn off 'Brain Death'. Ducky appreciated the gesture, it was easier to concentrate and Bach was much more conducive to thought. "_Oh_, not true, I have."

Dawn curled a long blonde lock about her right index finger and Abby finally prompted. "And?"

"It took two weeks for Bobby-Ray to finally forgave me, but that's another story. Are you ready?"

"I'm ready. Flight's booked - _First Class_, I've got to indulge sometime, so why not for my overdue vacation? Bags are packed. I'm ready for two weeks of Mardi Gras."

Dawn's fingers halted their hair twirling. "Mardi Gras was months ago, You either missed it or else you're really early."

"It's _always _Mardi Gras when Abby Sciuto returns to Jefferson Parish."

"Amen."

"'sides, I couldn't make it then on account of the wedding."

"Wed- wha- wait! You got _married_?"

"Not me. Friend of mine. Remember Tim McGee?"

"The guy you were running a boiling fever over? Only _yeah_. So, he did go and marry his partner after all?"

"Nope, he married a priest." Screen-Abby's face became a mask but all expression fell off Dawn's, all tone vanished from her voice.

"I didn't know he was gay," she said through near-motionless lips. Abby's laughter only disconcerted Dawn more. "Bi?" made her laugh harder.

"No, the priest's a woman," Abby assured her when she could get enough breath. "We have them up here."

"So, neither gay nor bi. _Good_. You almost _ruined _a whole year's worth of wet dreams." She ran her left hand fingers through her hair, pulling at the ends.

x

Abby had slapped the control. "Oh God, I forgot how personal that got."

"Never fear, my dear. I shall maintain all due discretion when I write my report."

He recalls her expression, she'd looked like her heart crammed itself in her esophagus at the thought of any of this being committed to permanent record until she realized he was conning her. Her slap of his arm was more a downward stroke of fingertips and she'd restarted the images.

x

"Pipe down, YoungStar, he's too old for you."

"Not if _you _could date him, Vamperstein."

"Seriously, Sunshine, I'll send you some vids of the wedding. But why the call?"

"No, I'm just double-checking," Dawn continued to run her fingers through the straight blonde locks that frame her face and brush the tabletop. "Remember, you're staying with us, room right next to mine's all fixed up. No excuses."

"I'm sleeping with Kevin?" Abby lit her eyes.

"You wish. Kev's in the Air Force, Staff Sergeant."

"No _way_. Kevin Caldwell couldn't follow an order if it was to collect his salary."

"Times they do change. Love you."

"Love you too, Sunshine."

"June 3rd."

"Be there"

"_or be a squircle_," they finished in unison and Dawn cut the image.

x

The recording had vanished and he'd looked up at the scientist. "A squircle?"

"A square circle. Just one of those silly 'kid-things' that carries through the years. Can you help me?"

"This thing she does with her hair…?"

"She _never_ does that."

"Then that could well be significant. I note she pulls harder in times of stress, less so when discussing pleasant matters. Her reference to sexual matters seems to give her the greatest stress, but there is a definite note of concealment. Her focus had an inordinate amount of sexual connotation for so brief a conversation. As I recall, when I met her in July she'd not only been assaulted but actually–"

"_Yes_, that's why I was hoping, seeing how things went with Jimmy, that you'd have some insight into what she's feeling." As Jimmy had shot and killed George Franklin to rescue Megan Wood, Dawn Caldwell had shot her attacker to save a more helpless victim.

"I do indeed," Ducky said, unable to mask his grim tone. "What was the aftermath of that incident?"

"I don't know." He'd turned more toward her, amazed she can give such an answer. "The reports the gang wrote were enough to keep her out of jail, 'third party defense', but beyond that I don't have a clue. I _tried_ to get a look at the legal records, the medical records. I can't."

"Interesting." He hadn't believed a word of that, still doesn't, but the fact she'd feel she had to lie to him while begging his help was telling. "And the result of your backdoor search?"

"I've been too scared to do one." This was more and more atypical of Abby Sciuto, and he supposed his face had said that quite plainly. "I didn't – I was scared she'd find out I was sneaking into her records."

That lie he could see as plainly as Doctor Palmer's wife, newest on Jethro's team, would have and it saddened him again that she would try. "Whereas I, as a duly authorized Officer of the Court, have front door access you lack."

"I'm _sorry_."

"Never fear, my dear." He stood up, signaling their non-conversation was at an end. "I shall make discreet inquiry into her health and let you know what I find."

"Thank you. I love you, Ducky."

ooo

Well, thus far it has not gone as he would have hoped. Abby's apprehensions had been most certainly well grounded. What he'd found had made clear to him her reasons to be too frightened to look were justified. But he has looked, he's seen, and now only a few more details must be confirmed before he must crush his friend's heart.

But before then, he has an equally sad duty to fulfill.

Chapter One  
Too Many

The late afternoon is fittingly overcast, as though Heaven itself stands witness to the gloomy Memorial Service. That this service takes place on the first day of the Memorial Day weekend only enhances the dark pall that covers all, but mostly it is because the murder of the one they mourn is unsolved and he lies unavenged. In the grove near Building 111 men and women stand at near attention surrounding the most recently dedicated tree.

By tradition, when an NCIS Special Agent makes the ultimate sacrifice for God, Duty and Country, a tree is dedicated together with an appropriate plaque to mark that Agent's service. Nearly three years ago the last tree so dedicated was to memorialize Caitlyn Todd. For more than two years NCIS had been collectively fortunate, then in the span of too few weeks last spring and summer nine trees, the most ever dedicated at any one time, were marked.

Director Jennifer Shepherd had sworn on that occasion that she would retire or resign before she'd order any more trees to be planted to supplement the few that remained.

Now a gleaming bronze plaque identifies yet another tree, the raised lettering hailing 'Special Agent Christopher Drakis'. Though the raised text gives a capsule summary of his career, no one can miss, in the dates raised below his name, that he'd laid down his shield and finished his duties at 33 years of age.

At the Service's conclusion men and women stand where they are as a Marine bugler raises his instrument to his lips and the mournful notes of 'Taps' reach mournfully across the field.

As the notes draw at each phrase's end and the final one to a full sixteen count there are few dry eyes among the Agents. Whether they knew Chris Drakis well or not, the music tears at hearts.

x

There is no military call of dismissal, men and women slowly depart in their time, singly, in pairs or small groups.

Tim McGee steps away from among his teammates toward his wife who stood beside the tree as she led the Memorial and still hasn't left that solitary post.

Where others are generally clad in black, befitting the moment, her black is a calf length skirt topped by light blue back button Clerical blouse and crowned by a stiff white collar encircling her throat. Draped from her neck down to her thighs is a purple stole adorned on each end which flutters gently in the light breeze with a plain gold embroidered cross. She's facing him as he approaches but she's not looking at him, she's staring strictly ahead.

When he's ten feet away he sees her fine trembling, her locked eyes, her careful tight breath and draws no closer. Shav will not cry in public, not even with him save for one time, and she's a hair's breadth from breaking.

He knows why; that music tore at them all, but as a priest she must maintain composure in the saddest of times or she feels her duty to comfort others is compromised. He turns away, back to his team, for a single word, any gesture of comfort will shatter her.

"Tonight," she whispers tightly behind him.

He looks back, says only "Sixteen," and moves off.

It's already 1500 hours.

xx

The silence that smothers Gibbs and his four field agents lasts only until they reach the third floor Operations Division and their bullpen. "It's been three weeks since those bastards blew Chris Drakis up with his house," Gibbs declares as he leads them into the enclave. "What've we got to show for it?"

His demand carries his usual fire and Ziva, McGee and Palmer look to DiNozzo.

'Sometimes it sucks to be Senior Field Agent.' He'd been Team Leader for a time, it'd been on his watch that Palmer had come aboard, so it falls to him to remind his frustrated senior "Not our case, boss."

"I _know _that, DiNozzo."

All the Alpha teams had been in MTAC when Director Shepherd had given that assignment to SSA Fred Higgins and his team, all others being tied up with the Wetzel / Hudson / Presit / Galert murder spree; but now that case is in the 'accumulate evidence against the accused' phase and it's obvious that Gibbs, galvanized by the Service, is chomping for more hands-on work.

He doesn't want any more. After twelve grueling days on duty including a weekend rotation, he and the others have looked to the three-day weekend with the hunger of a starving man given carte blanche at Gelbard's.

He suspects they're about to lose it.

x

He bites the bullet and reaches for the plasma screen remote, more inclined to bite that instead. He presses the activation button but, nothing prepared, he must turn to his computer to call up the image of a familiar man in dark brown suit and seated next to a flag.

"Christopher Drakis was Special Agent Afloat on the Aircraft Carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, still docked here at the Navy Yard until the SECNAV gives them the green light to get underway. He's not about to do that while the Roosevelt's a double Crime Scene, terrorist theft primary and murder secondary.

"Drakis caught the flu in the final days of approach from the mid-east, did a fast End-of-Tour check-in with the director and retired to home. The following morning his house blew up, scattering parts up to three quarters of a mile away. Metro, Fire and our Investigations conclude his stove was tampered with as was his kitchen light. Gas filled the house which, because of his flu, he never smelled. That was supposed to kill him, the sabotage to his light was the backup. He flipped the switch and ka-boom."

"Meantime," McGee grabs the ball when DiNozzo pauses for breath, "an inspection of the Eisenhower revealed twenty-five pounds of uranium, processed down to talc-fine silver/white powder, is missing."

x

Ziva yanks the ball from him. "The theft was incredibly inept, it only succeeded because of its suicidal foolhardiness. Four of the Engineering crew sent the stuff out in the ship's garbage, exposing themselves to potentially toxic levels of radiation. They could not get off the ship or the plot might have been revealed sooner than it was, but they got the uranium out. A garbage truck drove through and out of the Navy Yard. Said truck was found, with moderate levels of radiation contamination even with the brief exposure, on the southeast border of Shenandoah State Park and Special Agent Baxter and his team are trying to track the driver and crew."

She pauses to inhale and McGee grabs it back. "Abby has tire impressions from a 2001 Pontiac."

He doesn't hold the ball long, Ziva's got her breath. "The crewmen who engineered the theft and handed off the uranium are presently being held under heavy guard at Bethesda, where they hide behind a wall of anarchistic polemic."

Gibbs looks to Michelle Palmer, the only person to remain silent during this outrageous recap. "Don't you have something to say?"

She shrugs, smiles a weak smile. "Good luck?"

x

Not helpful, but he won't cross the room for a head slap. Not only doesn't he strike her in nearly a year but the sentiment is sincere and accurate. In nearly three weeks, even with suspects behind literal bars, having been treated for inhaling the almost microscopically fine atomic fuel, neither Baxter's nor Higgins' team nor anyone else is close to finding the missing uranium nor discovering what some unknown person or persons will do with it.

"What do you _have_?"

"None of the men have called for lawyers," she says, "which after all this time tells me they don't want to risk even Lawyer/Client privilege."

"Or that they're stalling for something," DiNozzo says.

"They're keeping mum about everything on this case," she takes it

"Except when they brag about the New Order," DiNozzo takes it back.

"Where have we heard that before?" McGee asks.

No one needs to answer, it's the ultimate rhetorical question. Though McGillicuddy, Crocetti and Morrison seemed to have been dealt a crippling blow following the Millennium debacle and the capture of Herbert Morrison and Antonio Crocetti, Jackson McGillicuddy is still out there and, to date, has been disturbingly quiet. It would be no surprise if he reared his unidentified but probably ugly head in this case.

x

"DiNozzo, pull the reports Fred Higgins and his team filed on the hunt, see if they missed anything. You three, keep working on piecing together our case."

The 'Strangers on the Train' murders of William Wetzel, Wilfrid Hudson, John Galert and Robert Presit and the planned assassinations of Edward Elbourne and Del McCourt had yielded a mountain of evidence, much of which is still being sought, discovered, tabulated and catalogued. Four victims, two missed victims, six conspirators - four of whom were actual murderers; the inventory of evidence has already hit triple digits. These court cases – already determined to run separately for each defendant – will last for months and he and his team will have to testify several times.

Solving complex crimes like this one is a true pleasure, gathering the minutia for use in Court not so much. That, Gibbs supposes, is why his mind keeps leaping back to their close-to-home mystery.

x

"DiNozzo, how did they get in?"

For an instant Tony's unsure if the 'they' refers to the murderers of Wetzel or Presit or

"The ones who blew up Drakis," he concludes in time. Kelman's reports had been generally available, he knows the boss wants to be sure everyone's on the same page. "Best theory is the back door. What's left of it, when it landed on a neighbor's lawn, having completely sailed over the intervening neighbor's, shows signs of a pry bar. Pity."

Had Chris Drakis noticed the signs of break-in - was he too sick for more than a cursory glance as his apparently still locked rear door? - he might still be alive.

"Was he working on anything that might have gotten him targeted?"

"His files say no. While 6,000 plus seamen aren't all going to be candidates for Good Conduct Medals, most of his cases didn't rise much beyond the petty. There were the usual gambling incidents but only two had any hints of funny business. There were two 'Dear John' messages that led to 'Disorderly Conduct' charges. The COB got them pushed down the scale, a couple extra Watches balanced the scales as far as the Captain was concerned."

"There were three Sexual Harassment accusations brought forth during the tour," Michelle reports. "One was resolved and the sailor had a formal Reprimand placed into his permanent file, the other two are still pending but they had remained in the level of harassment, not physical."

"There were four drug related incidents," Ziva says. "It appears the source was a store frequented during a Shore Leave, an authorized store which has since lost its status and is now on the O-L list, but I do not believe that the penalties would be worth a murder charge. Still, I am working with Special Agent Kelman along this line as a possible motive."

"Whoever blew up his house," DiNozzo summarizes, "probably had an accomplice here on the mainland. Most people don't know where Agents live. Whoever booby trapped his house had to get there, possibly know he was sick enough that he wouldn't react to the gas leak or else thought he'd pass out before being able to stop it, and then they had to get back out without waking him."

"No matter how much Nyquil he had taken," Ziva counters, "Drakis was a trained Federal Agent. I still have trouble believing he would have slept through a break-in, been unaware of the accumulating gas and then would set off the booby trap that killed him."  
"And he never even investigated those four bastards in Engineering, not even for being late for duty?"

"No indication," she says. "Painful as it is to consider, Special Agent Drakis' murder seems to be, in the words of Special Agent Higgins, 'a distraction'."

x

"DiNozzo, what do we have on the Engineering crew?"

"Petty Officer Second Class Frank Hodge was the ranking officer and he was on Alpha shift, 0800 to 1600." Four staggered pictures appear on the plasma screen, the upper two faces shifted left from the bottom two and DiNozzo points to the top left one. "That's one reason, by the way, why no one picked up on the conspiracy until it was too late. PO3 Kevin Cotto was also on Alpha while Seaman Carlos Sosa was on Beta and Seaman Albert Sparks stayed awake all night on Gamma."

Gamma shift was and always has been the least preferred shift. Coming on at low twelve, if you're on deck you learn the real meaning of dark on an overcast night when the nearest street light is a thousand miles away.

Tony uses his keyboard for a few moments, then presses a button on the remote control and the image before the sensor expands to fill the screen. "Kevin Cotto is twenty three, PO3 and fairly unremarkable. Born and raised in Bloomfield Illinois, mother deceased, father works for a shipping company."

He reduces that image, points and clicks on the next. "Seaman Carlos Sosa on Beta Shift, unimpressive record; in fact all four of them went out of their way not to go out of their ways and draw attention to themselves, which on a ship with 6,000 sailors all competing for promotion should have drawn attention to them.

"Seaman Albert Sparks, same undistinguished career, is nearing the end of his enlistment, four more months to go. Safe to say he's not getting an Honorable Discharge."

"Also safe to say," Gibbs counters, his impatience for progress giving force to his words, "that the gang was under a deadline. Steal the fuel by September or do the job a man short."

There's no question in his mind about Sparks re-upping. A man that pretty much coasted - in so far as a Sailor can coast - through his first term signing on for a second would have raised eyebrows.

"All right," he looks at his watch. It's after fifteen thirty and, much as he'd like to hold them, he has no justifiable reason to. Their own case is in the 'post-arrest, evidence gathering' phase, which is why he feels no guilt in stepping into Fred Higgins', Melanie Kelman's or anyone else's case. Pressed, he'd say he was simply having his team help and supplement them, if he cared to say anything at all.

Being Deputy SAIC does have its perks.

x

"DiNozzo, if Higgins people haven't solved this by Tuesday, you also have Cotto, David: Sosa. Palmer: Sparks; McGee... get plenty of rest at this convention of yours, 'cause when you come back you've got the ring leader Hodge. All of you, find that uranium."


	2. Friday Festivity

Chapter Two  
Friday Festivity

Hotel Meritz's elegance greets the evening visitor at the three golden revolving doors and proudly continues an uninterrupted symphony all the way through to the complimentary fruit basket that adorns every bed.

The foyer is eighty feet wide, a hundred twenty long, mahogany counters and gilt chandeliers and deep maroon rug that absorbs all footfalls steep the cavernous lobby in silent elegance. Each distinct section is set off by pilasters that support marble arches while the ceiling is hand crafted blue, gold and red squares and rectangles that surround the gold chains supporting tremendous gold chandeliers. The Reservations and other desks almost eighty feet away continue this motif, off-white marble inlaid with squares of darker maroon, the whole looking to grow from the surrounding pilasters.

Tim McGee stops beside the red haired woman who preceded him through the revolving entry and now takes in the magnificence with sedate ease. "Pretty impressive?" He'd been impressed by the lavish extravagance last year.

"It's okay." He turns to her. Three inches separate them but if she wears her high heeled slippers they usually negate that distinction. "Cara, when you've served in the National Cathedral, Saint John the Divine and Canterbury and seen them all from the Sanctuary's vantage, secular opulence just doesn't measure up."

"Wait a minute, you've never Served at Canterbury."

"No, a chuisle, but their website is really impressive."

He gives up, knowing he's been outplayed again. He realizes he's fallen victim to her wiles so many times.

He also knows he doesn't mind one bit. Instead he puts one arm about her shoulders, hugs her as he takes in the lobby and works to divorce himself from NCIS.

x

He remembers from last year that there are 4 ballrooms on each of the 3 floors above them and that the lobby spread before them isn't usually a crowded montage of comic book / sci fi / superhero color. Expansive as the room is, it's clear from the density of people who mill about that the already begun convention upstairs is firmly in the hands of the fans.

The average age, to his fast scan, is mid-twenties and the general attire is four to eight color tee shirts and even more flamboyant costumes. By his height Tim can pick out a Darth Vader while Classic Batman's - as in Adam West's - pointy eared cowl pops out above a quintet far to the left while Supergirl in her blue midriff halter and micro skirt makes her presence - and more - felt as she passes close to his right. People come for this event not just from the bi-state area but from throughout the known - and unknown - world, and as the Convention officially opened an hour ago, it's obvious the revelers are well ready for Mardi Gras on Earth-Two.

x

"Dear Lord," Siobhan whispers, not quite certain what to make of this budding madness. The last Convention she attended was the Diocesan Convention and, naturally, it was nothing like this. "I could've arrived as a Bishop in full panoply and been lost and ignored."

"Lost maybe," Tim says, then she feels even more than sees him caress her with his gaze from face to feet. Her blue blouse and jeans aren't designed to be seductive, but he's told her that to him she's seductive in grease stained coveralls too big for Gibbs. "Ignored? _Never_."

It feels good but "Sure'n you're just saying that because I'm your wife."

His gaze turns to x-ray. "Nope, because you're a sexy–"

"_Hush_! I swear, Timothy L. McGee, you are incorrigible."

"Do you want to corrige me?" She shakes her head, wincing slightly at the bad and overused pun which he hits her with every time she uses that accusation. She also knows very well that he doesn't have a middle name, but she's taken lately to using initials to tag him for what she's thinking.

"So what's the L?"

"_Letch_."

"Cute."

She glances about the huge lobby, shrugs; "So maybe we should get the L out of here?"

"I'll _get _our room, then we can go to Registration."

"What kind of place has you register and then register?"

"The Con game," he declares.

x

He turns, his arm about her pulling her into a kiss. Caught half off guard, her own hands land on his chest, but after what she feels to be quite enough seconds, she presses slightly with her right index finger, just enough to get his attention.

"A chuisle," it's not easy to mutter into a kiss, but with Timmy she's gotten quite a lot of practice, "you're making a spectacle."

"No, I'm not." His words vibrate her lips.

"We're blocking the door."

"There are two others."

This vibration she felt down to her toes. "But we're wasting time."

"It's a four day Convention."

She pushes him hard enough to break the kiss, not at all confident that he wouldn't carry out his 'threat'.

xx

When Tim leaves the Hotel Registration desk with two cards for their room on the 22nd floor and returns across the lobby, his wife is conversing with three under-costumed young women.

She turns just as he arrives, and he isn't sure it's because she saw something in the reactions of the other women - he hadn't been watching their faces - or because of some wifely radar. If so he'd better learn about how it works.

"Timmy, these are Megan, Clarisse and Kaleta," she says, introducing Red Sonja with impressively long red wig - though the color's neither as natural nor striking as Shav's - and stunningly small triangular armor pieces that would serve better as pasties - and metallic G-string he imagines any Metro cop gladly arresting her for if she steps outside this hotel; Jeannie, a young Barbara Eden whose pantaloons and too inadequate vest would've sent the censors - sorry, Broadcast Standards Department - of the 60's into apoplectic shock, while Xena's partner Gabrielle leaves no mystery as to why the warlords of Ancient Greece were always trying to capture her.

"Megan manages a farm in Indiana, Clarisse is an Architectural Major in Saint Louis and Kaleta is an Accountant with Lehman Aircraft in San Diego. They met here at the Convention, and are going to compete in the Costume Contest on Monday in the Classical and Fantasy Divisions."

Tim, imagining what an unrestrained Tony DiNozzo might quip about ripe farm girls, well-built architects or great-with-figures accountants, can say none of those things - even if it were his nature - to his wife but instead says "I was gone for about a minute."

"You need to practice observation and retention when you speak to people," she quips, her brogue light.

"Well," Megan says, "we'll see you later?"

"Count on it. I'll be Green Lantern," she cocks her thumb at him, "he'll be Captain America."

x

The young women move off toward the pair of escalators in the far left end of the foyer and Siobhan turns to Tim, presses a smile from her lips. "Refocus your eyeballs, ma vourneen. Captain America can't get away with a tent pole in his trunks, no matter _how _large his shield is."

He breaks away, more astonished than affronted. "I wasn't staring."

She pats his arm. "Sure you weren't, Timmy."

"I was just picturing you in that Red Sonja armorette. Then you wouldn't have to wear the wig."

"_Exsqueeze me_, I subsisted on lunches of Nutrigrain bars and Slim Fasts for a month just to be sure I'd fit into Katma Tui's costume when today finally came. I don't know how Anthony DiNozzo conceived that I was pregnant," Tim has to clamp his hand over his mouth, "but just forget silver breast shields and triangle loin covers. And while on it, forget Elvira and Vampirella, unless you want to get bitten."

"Oh, you saw the..."

"Abby was very generous with those pictures from the Haunted House Grand Opening. Jennifer I knew could carry off Elvira, but Michelle simply hated going about as Vampirella. That's one thing for the privacy of the bedroom or wherever, quite another for out in public."

"Okay. No problem." He'd seen the on-line pictures from the House's site - all three of his friends were very impressive - but he considers for a moment what changes he'd make in Shav's costume. "How about Leeta's wedding outfit when she married Rom on Deep Space Nine?"

x

It takes her a moment to switch to this off-ramp on the non sequitor highway. She doesn't remember actually seeing the wedding - but then she recalls Chase Masterson Leeta's complaint. "'It's two doilies and a handkerchief.'"

"Well," Tim adopts Rom's characteristic drawl, "'maybe we can lose the handkerchief'?"

She slaps his arm but only lightly, then considers. "Maybe, if you're good, I'll see what I can put together out of Room Service."

xxx

Michelle Palmer pushes her apartment door open, half relieved not to find Jimmy in their living room. Closing the door, she starts toward the kitchen to her left past the couch and television but stops, tries to center herself. Ever since last week she's been living in dread every moment she stays at her desk that the intercom will ring and it'll be Cynthia Sumner summoning her to the Director's office, or worse, she'd look up and Jimmy would be standing in front of her desk, furious at her interference in his life or career.

She's trying to save both and going crazy because the process she's started has been progressing outside her hearing and she has no idea how far it's gone. All she knows is she's asked Tim's wife Siobhan, in her capacity as NCIS' Chaplain, to intercede in

"AAAIIIIEEEEEEEEE!" She has her Sig drawn as she whirls and yanks it toward the ceiling even before the echo fades. She hadn't expected to be tickled in her sides.

"_WHOA_." Jimmy backs away and she shoves the gun back into the holster at the small of her back. "I'm _sorry_."

"_Jimmy_..." She bites the words back and rejects the next ten things she won't let cross her lips.

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay." She raises her arms about his neck. "I won't shoot you today."

He kisses her, but has to admit "We have a strange marriage."

"What's so strange about it? You cut up naked dead people," she'd heard the story about that Sexual Harassment class, "and I make them that way. Supply and demand, the flow of commodity to consumer."

"Consumer, huh?"

"Uh huh," she says, smiling up at him, wishing he'd just kiss her again. She pulls down at his neck; usually he gets the hint.

"You scare me sometimes."

"You said that."

"I wasn't talking about witchcraft."

"Unfortunately," she releases his neck, "I was. I have to practice tonight."

She turns away but this time his fingers attacking her ribs bring different screams, these of hysterical laughter and she falls sideways onto the couch and he lands upon her, continuing to torment her until her hand comes back and closes on his already hard member. She knows, even half helpless with laughter, that if she wants to practice her spells and incantations tonight, she'll first have to practice with another wand.

xxx

After obtaining from the first Ballroom level Registration tables their Convention ID cards and packets, including Event Schedules, free samples and, interestingly enough, food vouchers, they ride the long elevator trip to the 22nd floor. Tim takes advantage of the solitude to get well acquainted with his wife - until she pushes him off an instant before the door slides open. She purposely wheels her luggage cart a half step behind him, assuring him that she doesn't trust him, and they finally reach 2212

He dips the white key card into the slot and pushes open the door, but he touches her shoulder to hold her back for a moment and wheels both their luggage cases inside. He then comes out for her, steps beside her before the open door, left hand to her back.

"_Timmy_," she wants to sound refusing but can't keep her grin from spoiling it. He'd done the same at each of the four 'Bed and Breakfasts' during their Ireland honeymoon and then at their apartment.

"It's tradition."

"Once."

"Who am I to try to break tradition?"

"It's a tradition signifying capture and conquest; that the woman now belongs to the man, his property - and that he can do anything with her that pleases him."

"Of _course_."

It's so hard to fake outrage while fighting a grin, so she turns full to him, places her hands on his shoulders, hops and locks her ankles, her legs about his hips, compelling him to hold her aloft.

"This isn't the traditional way."

"No," she says, her brogue lilting, "but it's more in keeping with your base and carnal desires."

She kisses him and he carries her in, kicks the door closed and carries her in further, unable to see any of the room until his knees collide with the edge of the double bed. They topple over, he lands upon her to her delighted laughter, the complimentary fruit basket set near the pillows topples onto them and his lips silence that laughter.

xxx

Tony DiNozzo, having finished the last of his work - he wants to leave Gibbs no excuse to call him back in - presses the third floor elevator button, his mind hours ahead of him. It's Friday of Memorial Day weekend, and even though having Monday off is by no means safely guaranteed, he intends to compress three days very firmly into two. Then, if by some miracle he does keep Monday, he'll have some optional time. He can always fill optional time.

The door opens and he sees that his evening is perking up already; Lisa DuBois and Janet Levy from Kevin Lamb's team are aboard, each of them looking very nice for a very late spring Friday evening.

"Ladies," he greets them with his best charm suave as he steps aboard.

"_Excuse _us," Lisa says, turning late spring into a bitter winter as they step past, their manners shouting that they'd had no intention of getting off the elevator.

They stop outside the doors, turn and adopt very evident waiting postures, clearly announcing their intent to continue to the garage without him. Each looks past him to the back of the car as the doors slide shut.

Tony, left staring at the metal doors between them a moment before the car descends, knows his ostracization isn't eased. Of all the women in Headquarters, it seems only Ziva, Michelle, Abby - and possibly Jennifer Shepherd - don't shun him, which is bad because the first three were the most adamant about shunning him before.

He recalls Gibbs' words about that filmed confession he'd done with Abby's help. The boss had said he hoped he could stand the consequences of clearing the air of that despicable rumor. He hadn't understood then but learned very quickly the consequence Gibbs had predicted. He'd never imagined he would trade the ire of his team and Abby for that of every other woman in NCIS.

He prays it'll stop soon before he exhausts all the good will he's ever had.

He doesn't hold out much hope.

xxx

"Jethro," Colonel Hollis Mann says reprovingly to the man seated upon his living room couch, her hand still on the knob, "are you ever going to lock this front door?" He turns only his head in her direction. "Oh, I know that look. That's your 'I've been home for ten minutes and I'm already going stir crazy' look."

"Hour and a half."

She checks her watch, closes the door and hurries to him, puts her hand to his head. "Jethro, are you sick? Is it the flu? Malaria? Bubonic plague?"

He ducks his head under her arm. "Holly, what are you talking about?"

"If you've been home an hour and a half already, that means you left your bullpen at quitting time, and that means you're at death's door. What can I do? Should I call an ambulance? Should I alert Ducky? Should I–?" He threads his legs about hers, twists and she lands on the couch beside him.

"You should tell me why you're breaking in uninvited."

His tone isn't forbidding, which lets her point out that "You can't break in invited."

He's evidently willing to let her have the point, though he's quiet for a few moments before saying "Ducky's going to Scotland on Tuesday with Jordan Hampton, his replacement's a nightmare and Abby is going to come to me soon to surprise me that she's leaving for Louisiana on a personal emergency."

"Wait a minute." Something doesn't sound right about that statement. "Abby's going to come to you and surprise...? Never mind, forget I said it." This is Gibbs, after all; he doesn't learn things in the linier way other human beings do. But his next words slam the smile off her lips.

"There's twenty-five pounds of processed uranium in the hands of terrorists. Less than a gram took Japan out of the war; twenty five pounds can build hundreds of bombs, one hell of a dirty bomb, or a collection of them."

x

Beyond the absolutely devastating effects of an atomic bomb – how many 1 gram bombs can twenty five pounds build? – dirty bombs are every Federal Agent's nightmare, the nightmare of any thinking man or women with enough knowledge to comprehend the danger. Ingested or inhaled, the radioactive material will tear cells apart in too great a variety of ways.

The fallout that doesn't kill now or in the future will irradiate this or some other city for who knows how long? A thousand years? Two? Chernobyl's a ghost town and probably always will be.

"I haven't heard anything about this." She's not surprised, though aggravated at being caught flat-footed. As head of the Criminal Investigation Division for the mid-third of the Eastern Seaboard, she still wouldn't be read in if someone else - NCIS for instance - were investigating the criminal aspect of the case - and it's quite evidently a Navy or Marine problem. Though she has resources and could undoubtedly help, Army brass won't be interested in her input.

Fortunately Jethro will be.

x

"USS Eisenhower pulled into the Navy Yard for regular maintenance, the crew started rotating shore leaves, Washington residents got the routine two nights and a day off. A few hours later Special Agent Afloat Chris Drakis' house blew up. Took days just to find all of him. Ducky declared him by weight."

Mann could hardly have missed this. The media had covered the spectacular death of a 'Federal Agent' in an explosion that'd ruined the immediate neighborhood and left his house a smoking crater. She'd immediately checked Army before checking the output of the one news reporter Gibbs ever tolerated - likes, amazing as that is - and there it was: NCIS SAA Christopher Drakis. She'd learned a great many accurate details before getting them from Army dispatches.

"Distraction?" she asks, able to read ahead.

"While we were investigating Drakis' death hours after he got home, no one was looking at the sleeper agents in Engineering. They slipped twenty five pounds of uranium out by removing it from radiation shielded holders and taking it out with the garbage."

"Wonder it didn't kill them."

"Nearly did. When the theft was uncovered they were taken to Bethesda for delousing."

Mann restrains a smile; delousing gives an accurate enough, if misleading, detail of what those Sailors were put through.

But this doesn't answer the most pressing question. Six hundred milligrams of uranium in Little Boy were converted into sixteen megatons of explosive and took out Hiroshima in 1945. Survivors still struggle with lingering effects of that blast.

"Twenty five pounds of atomic fuel out there, what are you doing in here?"

"Not my case, its Higgins'. Kelman and her team have Drakis, we're on evidence gather from our case and have the weekend off."

"And when has this deterred the legendary Leroy Jethro Gibbs?"

She watches his eyes and gives him ten seconds; he's off the couch on eight.

"Come on."

He's on his way to the door, cell phone already in hand. Whoever he's calling doesn't keep him waiting. "Jacobson. Gibbs. I need you to bring something to Bethesda, one hour."


	3. Duck Power

Chapter Three  
Duck Power

'It's a good thing this place is so big', Siobhan McGee reflects as she walks hand in hand with her husband through one of four ballrooms on the second floor. This is one of the four given over to wildly eclectic dealers selling mind-bending varieties of comic / sci-fi / fantasy paraphernalia and memorabilia. The ballrooms, two pair facing one another across a long corridor, are tremendous yet she's overheard that over 15,000 people from all corners of the world have booked some combination of up to four day tickets. She hopes that total won't try to besiege these four Dealers' rooms at once.

For this evening they're Siobhan and Tim, relaxing as normal people, only half of those guests they see being classed as such. Though they brought costumes, more as indulgences than anything else, those are for tomorrow. Tonight is tourist time, _tomorrow _she'll spend a near hour putting on the scarlet face makeup and black wig that, with the green, black and white overly affectionate costume, will transform her into Katma Tui, Green Lantern of Space Sector 1417.

She half envies Timmy. All he needs to do is work his way into Captain America's classic red, white and blue costume, pull up the cowl, retrieve the round star and red/white bull's-eye stripes shield and he's set. If she gets a good head start he'll be waiting for her while she's still putting on her scarlet lipstick.

Seems strange, she thinks again; so much red for her face and yet she'll cover up with a black wig her natural red.

For now, however, they're normal humans; very normal for her for she's left her white collar, black skirt and light blue shirt in her luggage. She wouldn't bring them at all except she feels naked when too distant from them; though the thought of saving time on Sunday by going to nearby Saint Andrew's in make-up does bring a smile to her face.

'Maybe I will,' she grins. She does like to surprise people and shake them out of their expectations, so this might be fun.

Then George Donaldson will hear about it, get her declared deranged, tell Bishop Metcalf she's unfit to perform her duties and she can get some real rest.

"What are you grinning about?" Timmy asks, pulling her back to Earth.

"Oh, vacation."

x

Tim puts his arm around Shav to pull her close, enjoying the feel of her body against his and takes in the room as a whole, breathes in the creative ambiance and feels his writer's soul nourished as it hasn't been in months. Everyone here shares the creative spark, either as a creator or a fan of same and he's enjoying every millisecond of it - far more this year than last for he has his lovely wife to share it with.

This evening the room is hardly used, so large that the hundreds of people who shop early in the rows or examine the various displays still make the room seem sparsely populated. Tomorrow, Sunday and Monday this and the other eleven rooms will be packed, so he's determined to enjoy the evening while he can.

Standing here, Shav so close and her arm about his waist, he can feel Thom E. Gemcity come to life, energized by gestalt imagination and ready to create. Here he can find the inspiration, the spark for his next adventure in the annals of L. J. Tibbs. Or maybe it's time to have Special Agent McGregor step to the forefront and be the hero.

Things with Forensic Scientist Amy Sutton haven't worked out as he'd hoped. Even ignoring the nightmare of Landon's deranged quasi-reality, in his book the pair broke up just as they'd been on the verge of declaring their love for one another. Maybe it is time to take the series in a new direction. McGregor might find a new love interest, perhaps a vivacious Irish lass. Maybe he'll make her a prie-

"Timmy?" Shav's stopped, and with their arms about one another that alone was enough to snag his attention.

"Hmmm?"

"I was wondering if you'd like that pin."

Attention broken, he notices the tall, four sided revolving corkboard set atop the table beside them. It displays scores of pins on each side taken from every imaginable and some unimaginable sources. The one Shav is pointing to is an inch-wide replica of Captain America's shield.

"Nice," he admits, though the $9 sticker on top of the display dims his enthusiasm, "but I'm not really the pin kind of guy."

"That's not how you seemed upstairs," she tells him with a salacious grin.

Tim flinches at the pun. "Well, may- Oh my _God_..."

x

Siobhan's surprised as Timmy pulls out of her grip and she has to follow quickly two table lengths to a six foot tall glass tower display case - though only the upper four feet above the high black base contains the display: an apparently perfect replica of "The Rocketeer's" jet pack.

Unlike any number of scale models of Science Fiction or Superhero movie props they've seen this evening, and which she expects they'll see many more of, this is obviously no tin and wire replica.

Timmy's staring at it like he's in love, circling the case that stands upon a black pedestal so he can inspect all sides. He bends over to minutely inspect some detail. "Shav, this looks like it could _work_."

Before she can even say anything - Timmy's fascination with personal rocket technology is legendary - the woman behind the table beside the display says "It does work."

Timmy looks to her and his head does an impressive imitation of a double projector lighthouse. "It does?"

"Oh, yes. I've taken it for several flights."

He straightens. "Where'd you get this?"

"I built it."

"You _built_ this?" When he looks to her, Siobhan imagines she's about to find out how it feels to be two-timed by a rocket. "Shav, she _built_ this."

'Careful, a 'that's nice' now is going to be my death knell.' "_Really_." Was that intrigued enough?

He bends closer, looking like he wouldn't need Sherlock Holmes' magnifying glass. "Isn't this exciting?"

"If God had intended us to fly, he wouldn't have taken away our wings."

Tim looks back to her. "Nice 'Howard the Duck'."

"Thank you."

His attention again firmly clamped on the bronze pack, he barely drags his gaze off for an instant's glance at the woman behind the table.

"How does it work?"

"I had to make some changes," she admits, hearing the depth of his question. "The control sits on the chest, left hand controls the igniter, right dial handles the thrust."

He examines these as though he wants to squeeze into the case. "What's the fuel?"

"95 percent hydrogen peroxide. I can get two hundred pounds thrust for 81 seconds."

He straightens, surprise breaking him away. "That's incredible for something this size. 1/10 millisecond conversion, 5000 times expansion, you must use a significant constriction to get such a long burn." He bends down again. If it were a woman it'd be yelling for the police by now.

"You sound like you know rocket packs."

He doesn't pull his eyes from the casing. "I've done a tiny bit of thinking about them."

Siobhan laughs until her ribs ache.

xxx

Bethesda Hospital has never been Gibbs' favorite place and one look into Hollis Mann's eyes tells him she shares the opinion. This place always sets his teeth on edge, whether it be Jessica Smith when the young woman had been driven to madness and apparent suicide to his team's own 'Elf Lord' debacle, the only thing he enjoys about Bethesda is leaving it.

He's here to take a crack at one or more of the four terrorists who stole nuclear fuel from the Theodore Roosevelt, almost dooming themselves in the process. They're culpable in the murder of Special Agent Afloat Christopher Drakis, whose death he's certain was used to distract from the theft.

Holly - okay here she has to be back in his mind as Colonel Hollis Mann - has come as back-up. He's glad of her company, they've worked well together in interrogations, especially when playing the classic 'bad agent, worse agent'.

This late evening he's in the mood for scary agent.

x

He does, however, have a bad second when they get to the Security section and discover only three of the four prisoners are present.

He looks through the glass slot in the door where three men share the space intended for one, then turns to the Security guard on duty in the ward of eight rooms, automatically checking the man's ID. "Where's Seaman Sparks?"

"Gone, sir."

Gibbs steps directly in front of him, makes sure by glare, tone and height that the man knows it's the worst thing he could say. "Gone, Officer Broadler?"

"Yes, sir. Since Wednesday morning."

"_Where_?"

"Continuous Interrogation by NCIS Agents. In the basement. Any staff elevator down, Room 033."

Two and a half days. Good. "Go in, bring out Cotto and Sosa. Leave Hodge."

xx

Kevin Cotto and Carlos Sosa, like Frank Hodge, are cuffed and shackled, locked to a chain wrapped snugly about their waists. Their shackles allow them only to hobble in six inch steps. They're unlikely to give Broadler any effective resistance and Gibbs doesn't care that they're put in a room further down the ward and not marched directly to the morgue; he's interested in Hodge.

"Do I foresee a head slap in someone's future?"

"If grilling Sparks for this long doesn't work."

She'd read the case report he'd brought home while on the way here. "The same weakness that makes Sparks look like the one most likely to break first-"

"is why he won't know anything important."

"Rule 53?"

He considers for a moment. She's never created a rule for him but "Yes."

x

Regardless of any other development, he'll make certain they're also kept sequestered from Albert Sparks. After nearly three days, they'll believe anything about their erstwhile friend Higgins wants them to when he decides to tell them that Sparks broke.

Since their treatment for severe doses of radiation poisoning Hodge and his now two cohorts have shared a single twelve by twelve room. They're fed, given water and bathroom breaks, but beyond these essentials they're subjected to constant bouts of isolated interrogation by various agents of all shifts while otherwise given nothing of stimulation or distraction save their own company. They're not tortured or inconvenienced, that is if they enjoy one another's unwashed presence, through days of questions and mind numbing routine.

When he leads Mann into the room - something she's wisely getting used to - Hodge turns defiant, bloodshot eyes to them.

They almost draw back out again. The stench is stunning.

Whoever gave the order for this sequestering is going to get that head slap. Any experienced agent knows the nose - or olfactory senses as Ducky would say - shuts down from overwhelming assault only a few minutes after being exposed to such intense odor as this. Cotto, Sosa and Hodge haven't smelled each other or themselves in days but he and Mann must endure this until their own senses succumb to the battery.

x

Gibbs takes a chair immediately before Hodge - he'd rather the man were thrown into the Potomac - while Mann stands behind him, present but an invisible, looming presence. He tries not to look at her face and focuses on his job, not the abuse to his nose.

"Hodge, Francis," the man says as sharply as days of fatigue will allow him, "Petty Officer Second Class, United States Navy, Service Number 061374926."

"Know all that," Gibbs' bland tone dismisses the grand play.

"Allah is Great. Allah is Good."

"Got that too. What I don't have is the names of the people you handed the uranium off to and where they are."

"The skies will burn with fire and the clouds of death will engulf all."

"Why?"

x

It's clear Hodge wasn't expecting the question, particularly not when delivered so calmly, as though America weren't going to be destroyed by fire. He's stolen the materials for making several atomic bombs or even more dirty bombs, so he'd probably expected fireworks in getting him to give up his secrets. Rule 49: When interrogating a prisoner, never do what he expects.

It takes Hodge a moment to rally his own fervor. "Why do you invaders come to our country and ravage it for 500 years?"

"Frank Hodge, born July 16, 1989 in Kokomos Indiana."

"I have rejected that false life, as have many of my Muslim brethren. My real name is Abdul el Fadil."

Why do they always give themselves boasts rather than names? "Practicing Lutheran, of Salem Church, Logansport Indiana, according to your OMPF, last updated March 11 of this year."

There's a vast amount of information in each of their Official Military Personnel Files and he intends to use it all.

"Allah is the only God, and Mohammad is His Prophet."

Gibbs' voice maintains that same calm, not just to throw theastard off but because he doesn't want to breathe too deeply. "I don't care."

Again derailed, this time by the utter dismissal, it takes Hodge a moment more. "What?"

"You can be a Roman Catholic Methodist Orthodox Presbyterian for all I care. I care about the uranium."

"Then you shall see justice meted out from the sky, and you shall be cast into the lake of fire for your sins and the sins of your people."

"Maybe." He's not sure Muslims believe in the 'lake of fire' vision of hell, sounds more Zoroastrian to him, but he doubts Hodge knows the distinction.

x

A half hour more of this quasi-religious verbal fencing passes but Gibbs doesn't shift away from it. He doesn't care about Hodge's dodges, he's in no hurry. He's waiting for what turns out to be a diffident knock that finally comes at the locked door. Colonel Mann steps around the table and answers it, accepts a large manila envelope from Agent Jacobson, tells him to go upstairs and have a dinner break, closes and locks the door, carries the envelope to Gibbs.

He opens it, pages through the contents without drawing them out, selects the set he wants, pulls them out and closes the envelope again.

"I have bad news for you, Hodge. The treatment failed."

It takes several long moments for Hodge, fatigued by days of unrelenting interrogation, to absorb this. Since it has nothing to do with religion or questions about the uranium or his accomplices he's derailed. "What do you mean?"

"They tried to get the radiation out of you. It didn't work."

"No." Hodge tries to rise, to protest, but the cuffs attached to the band about his waist don't allow him to reach the leverage of the table so he can't get very far out of the chair.

"You're going to die," Gibbs says without a trace of sympathy, grateful he can no longer smell anything because the man's about to start sweating. He pulls out an 8x10 image of Hodge taken at his booking. The Seaman stands before a measuring chart painted on the wall, his expression defiant. "Just thought you'd like to see what the radiation is doing to you."

Upon the original Gibbs lays another. Hodge is still in front of that chart but this isn't a copy. He's notably thinner and his hair is starting to grey at the base of each strand. "That's a month out."

"What're you–?" he fidgets uncomfortably in his seat, "what're you talking about?"

"The radiation from that uranium, it's spreading through your body, attacking every cell." He lays another image down. Special Agent Jacobson has done an excellent job with Morph-Pro. Hodge is thinner, the flesh has fallen from his lower eyes, his hair is thinned and the grey is twice as extensive. That's inaccurate, but very effective to the tired man. His face also has a notable grey tinge to it. "Two months out. The radiation's destroying your kidneys, liver, spleen…. You'll develop renal failure even before your teeth start to drop out."

x

The next picture includes just such devastation to his mouth. The lips have receded, three upper teeth and four lower ones are gone, his hair that remains splotches his head in uneven clumps and his skin is starting to mold close to the bones of his skull. "Three months out, you've lost over a quarter your body weight, you're probably in intensive care in some hospital, being kept alive by feeding tubes inserted through your navel."

Atop that horror Gibbs lays another. The gaunt face is grey as asphalt, the eyes have sunk back into the skull, the lips have drawn further back from the near dozen teeth that are left.

"You – you gotta do something. You can't let me…."

"Well, Hodge, I'd _like_ to help… but my hands are tied. You won't even admit you were infected, let alone what you did with the uranium."

"No, no I'll… we were infected but the doctors, the doctors said they…."

Gibbs has laid down the last picture and wonders if even Ducky could look at this one without shying away.

xxx

Tim's eyes widen as he spies, in the northwest corner of the second dealers' room, the Auction Corner. He and Shav had agreed on a single pass-through of these rooms just to get an idea of what they're not going to buy, but Shav's said she has a bet that he'll break first.

Here, small and large - and in the case of costume replicas very large - display cases feature a collection of everything that can ever be imagined, from Addams Family to Zardoz, from Doctor Strange to Doctor Strangelove. Some of the things on display Shav's declared she still has a hard time imagining even after having seen it.

He looks to her; 'no buying' implied 'no bidding' but he supposes she reads his excitement in his eyes for she smiles.

"Go ahead. Your heart's already there."

He tries not to leave her behind, never minding that he's probably won Shav's bet for her, or knowing that she wishes now that she'd announced some terms.

The first tall case they comes to contains nine collectable Superhero and Supervillain Action Figures, nine figures each approximately six inches high surrounding a sixteen inches tall Galactus figure. "Let's see," Siobhan says, "I know Doctor Strange, Nightcrawler, Professor X, the Hulk - hmm, Grey and Green, would that be Classic and Modern? But I don't recognize..."

"Deathlock, War Machine, Bullseye… and angry Bullseye. And of course that's Galactus. This is the Marvel Legends Series 9."

"Of course it is," she says, wondering where his brain had stored that obscure bit of trivia.

Tim glances at the pad attached to the top of the display and to the only entry. "What, is he _nuts_?"

"Who?"

"'B. Willoughby'. He bid $500 for the lot. You never lock yourself into a high bid, you always ease in."

"Maybe he really wants it. Looks worth it," she grants with a tiny shrug.

"It's not worth it. Maybe if they were still in the bubble cases you might get about a hundred each but used, you're talking maybe $10 to $30 each, maybe $50 or $75 for Galactus. And these are going to be Auctioned on Monday, which means the set will start at $500."

She opens her small bag slung from left shoulder to right hip, pulls out a pen and bends over the paper.

"You're not going to."

She grins up at him. "501. Just to make it interesting." She thinks it over. "No, that's mean." She puts the pen away.

"You'd never be mean."

She reaches up, trails a fingertip down his left cheek. "Only to you, mo vourneen."

He steps away, she clutches his arm. "Hang on, how do you just happen to know s much about 'Marvel Adventure Series 9'?"

"Legends."

"You have one, don't you?" She's never seen it anywhere in the apartment – hard to miss this, but….

"No, I don't have it." She doesn't let go, and gives him eyes that won't compromise. "Okay, I have Doctor Strange. I wasn't interested in the others, or Galactus, but I wanted Stephen Strange."

"Where is it? He?" She still couldn't miss it in their apartment.

"I gave him away." Her eyes still don't give him anything. Give away a comic book Action Figure? Timmy? "There was this kid, he wanted nothing for Christmas but to see his mother who was serving on board a ship in the Indian Ocean. Well, I arranged it, but something about him, well his situation, just touched my heart, you know? And it wasn't doing anything on my shelf so…."

She takes his earlobes to keep his head still and kisses him.

x

"How long you two married?" a bearded man next to one of the displays snatches their attentions when the kiss breaks. From his white name card, unlike the plain ones he and Shav wear, hangs an attached red ribbon that proclaims 'STAFF' in gold letters.

Shav smiles. "Sixty six days, five hours and," she checks her wristwatch, "twenty seven minutes."

"Yeah, you're newlyweds, all right. Congratulations."

"Thank you."

"Let me guess: Saint Patrick's Day."

"How could you tell?" she asks with a near smirk. She never hears the way she speaks; everyone _else_ has the accent.

"Lucky guess. Enjoy," the man says, his tone making it clear with a shift of his gaze through the ballroom that he refers to the Convention.

She takes her husband's hand and assures the man "I will," with as salacious a tone as she dares, pulling him along.

"And you call _me _incorrigible," he says when they're out of earshot.

"You are incorrigible, darling."

He shrugs. "Can't argue with that."

x

They stroll for some time through the quarter, checking display cases and easeled art, Shav spending more time with the original paintings which, like everything else at this convention, covers the eclectic multiverse. Tim considers several pieces, mostly in terms of how they'll look on appropriate walls of their apartment but he finds no single piece that'll compel him to break his 'no buying on Friday' rule. Maybe on Sunday he'll place some 'fun bids', just to see in which direction things go. The weekend bidding is never binding, which is why very few items have numbers on the pages. Those bids merely constitute Monday's opening bids in the actual auction so written bids are generally kept low anyway. He wonders about the ultimate fate of that Action Set. Maybe he'll keep a half-interested track on that $500 bid.

He gradually becomes aware of Shav, walking beside him among the tables and standing displays, singing softly and recognizes the song as 'Pure Imagination' from 'Willy Wonka' and seems so appropriate to this moment and setting.

She'll do this occasionally when the mood strikes, singing softly to herself and, as he usually does, he stops paying attention to his surroundings and pays attention to her.

He listens to her humming of the musical bridge and just relaxes into the moment, immerses himself in those magic lands they alone can see.

xxx

Abby is so deeply engrossed in blood analysis that the soft call from behind her doesn't register until she's heard it three times. Even this third occasion barely impinges upon her consciousness but it does get her to turn, and a bright smile illumines her face when she sees her white coated visitor.

"Duck-man with a personal visit," she exults, "and keeping my hours." But his grim expression scrapes the smile from her lips. "What is it?" His expression gives her the grim answer and an iron fist crushes her heart. "_Dawn_?"

"I am so sorry, Abby."

She rushes off the stool. "Tell me!"

"I've made inquiries regarding your friend Miss Caldwell."

"_And_?" His restrained, grim manner dislodges her heart, causes it to climb into her throat.

"In the past several months Miss Caldwell has been hospitalized on two occasions for Intermediate Care in the Southeast Louisiana Hospital. The most recent occasion was four weeks ago. It was the day after her release that she contacted you."

"_Oh God_." She feels her heart drop below her stomach.

"The diagnosis is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Her doctor prescribed Tiagabine."

"That's an _Anti-Psychotic_."

"It is used for anxiety disorders," he tells her, apparently surprised he has to. He probably wishes she wouldn't get so anxious but she can't help it.

"It can cause _seizures_."

"Abby, she is well monitored, and her dosage is only 6mg."

"Thank God."

"She is presently on furlough from her employment as a Kindergarten teacher."

"Oh NO. Oh God, oh No! She _lives_ for those kids, they're her life. Take them away and she'll go– I should've kept better touch, I should've–!"

"At such a distance as to Louisiana there is little you could have done," he says firmly.

"I have to call her."

"In that case, since you are officially still unaware of her difficulties, I prescribe some Chamomile tea rather than your usual fare."

x

She's halfway out to her smaller office when:

"Abby?"

She turns back, apprehension leaping up her torso like a pole vaulter, but one that has to be forced down. "Yes, Ducky?"

"You could've determined all this as easily as I did, and in less time."

She feels like a doe trapped in a rifle's sites and finally gives in. "I was afraid."

"Of finding this out?"

"Of not being able to know what to do."

"And now that you do know, what are you going to do."

She stares into his eyes, the doe not knowing which way to leap.

xxx

Jimmy Palmer doesn't want to think of anything but bed - well maybe one thing related to bed - when he turns his key in the lock and pushes open his apartment door. He's surprised to find 'Chelle's not alone on their couch to his left.

Even more than not expecting company this late in the evening, he hardly expected to see Sammy Sky.

"_Hi_, Jimmy!" she jumps off the couch to greet him with her usual bubbly enthusiasm. Okay, Doctor Mallard might have other adjectives but he's much too tired to come up with any.

"Hi, Sammy." He tries to moderate his tone. He really does like her. Long gone are the days when he considered her a threat to his place at NCIS. They've been through far too much together over the past few months for that, but he really can't get his mind around anything but mattress and pillow.

Though he'd had a bad flash of déjà vu, he's forgiven her for that Prank they'd pulled on him. He'd got the better of it in the end, but he's still a bit distrustful. Once a practical joker….

"Well, it's late, you're tired and I must run," Sammy declares, surprising him with a hug - when doesn't she surprise him? - as well as with her perceptiveness. When 'Chelle gets up, Sammy hugs her too, giggling. "Have fun," she says, hugs him again just as enthusiastically and is gone past him so immediately he's not sure he hasn't missed something.

x

Maybe her departure wasn't as immediate as it seemed, maybe he's so beat that things just seem compressed but now at least he and 'Chelle are alone.

"What just happened?"

"What do you mean?"

"She... you..." She sounded too innocent. Are they planning another Prank? He's not sure he can take it; once was far too much.

"Just 'girl talk'," she assures him, probably reading his distrust. She hugs him. "Come to bed," she says in that tone that makes it so clear she's not thinking of sleep.

"Sounds good."

"I thought you'd feel that way." She looks up to him, eyes alight.

He hates, really hates, to have to disappoint her. "'Chelle, I'm really tired. Doctor Mallard made me finish all three final reports and everything tonight. I'm really beat."

"Oh." She doesn't sound disappointed. Instead, her hand closes gently over him, cups and moves quite persuasively, her smile mischievous and sexy together, her fingers... "You _sure _I can't persuade you to change your mind...?"

xxx

Tim McGee sits absorbed in the far off panel discussion in one of the third floor ballrooms, Shav close at his left side. The conventioneers who dot the room are widely separated; the room can seat nearly two thousand in its rows of chairs that reach from near one wall to the other distant one, less the wide aisle up the middle. The chairs are further broken by two cross lanes making six huge islands of potential humanity, but barely two hundred people, perhaps as energized on Day 1 as Tim feels tonight, dot the islands.

The panel far forward consists of four women artists, one from DC, one from Marvel, one from Image and the last from Dark Horse and the discussion is on 'Vampires; from Morbius the Living Vampire to Anita Blake', of which Marvel has the rights to develop the graphic novels.

Attentive as he is - though he could tell these women a vampire Case History that would curl their hair - he gradually becomes aware of increasing pressure beside him. He turns to Shav's hair inches from his eyes; she's leaning against him, comfortably asleep.

He looks at his watch and decides that though this panel has another fifteen to go, and he feels as invigorated as a vampire who's gorged on AB+ with an O– chaser, perhaps they've done enough for this first night of the Con.


	4. Tale End

Chapter Four  
Tale End

Leroy Jethro Gibbs and Hollis Mann step out into the long, early dawn shadows. Those of the few cars that dot Bethesda's parking lot, including his own, extend twenty five feet and he's glad it's Saturday. He can go home - when he drops Hollis Mann off at hers - and sleep in with a clear conscience.

They've handed the baton over to Susan Bourne who will apply her 'I'm trying to help, let's be friends and I can get you out of here' method for the next six hours. They got Hodge talking but what he knows isn't impressive. The uranium does have a buyer, that buyer is rumored to be al Qaeda - no one ever admitted anything directly - but the buyer is in Washington.

x

"I'm actually impressed," Hollis confesses, masking her fatigue behind well crafted shields. "Those pictures were a master stroke. But still, half a week awake does wonders for the constitution."

"We didn't even have to water board him."

Hollis evidently doesn't think much of the quip. "I think he's crazy. Do you think he's crazy?"

The man and his three accomplices had maneuvered their way onto, or were maneuvered onto, the engineering crew of the Aircraft Carrier USS Dwight D Eisenhower where, once activated from their 'Sleeper' status, stole and smuggled off the ship twenty five pounds of deadly radioactive uranium without using any of the necessary safety protocols or equipment.

Fifteen pounds produces a world record devastating blast, and devastating can only be expressed in that Hiroshima was destroyed by 600 to 800 _milligrams_, or 0.028 ounces.

Conservatively, ten widely dispersed dirty bombs, the leftovers of the big daddy, can render 10 cities uninhabitable for generations.

At the very best, these sailors can hope for no better than life in prison, a life potentially shortened by radiation poisoning that the doctors have missed. Those pictures he'd ordered created might be prophetic. How do you get every bit of invisible radiation when doctors sometimes can't get every last visible cancer cell? Hodge will never see the 'new order' he and his fellow conspirators promote.

Even if the conspiracy, in which he's little more than a cog in a factory, should somehow defeat the anti-terrorist safeguards ranged against it, he and his fellows will never enjoy it.

"Yeah, he's crazy," he says, descending the steps which pound at his tired muscles with every step. "Unfortunately, he's also stupid to buy into this enough to commit treason. Come on, I'll drive you home."

xxx

It took less effort than Siobhan thought to have her distracted husband agree to have breakfast down the street from the Hotel Meritz and consequently to do so as normal humans, delaying the advent of Captain America and Katma Tui.

Granted there's still the café, a makeshift meal area stanchioned off in a quarter of a fourth floor ballroom. It's more convenient than the hotel restaurant, but once again there's no room and she isn't in the mood to wait.

Last night the ad hoc café was packed, and she has a feeling their 20 percent off vouchers will go unused for quite some time. Now, seated in a booth in this restaurant, she surveys the breakfast prices on the menu and can well appreciate why there's no room at the café this morning either. Even ignoring the vouchers, a plate of scrambled eggs, home fries, hash browns, tea and orange juice will set her back $12 here where at the Convention the same fare is fairer at $8.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Timmy says, breaking through her contemplation.

"Darling, you do not want to get me started about money."

"What's wrong?"

The question brings her to a halt. What _is _wrong? She's enjoying a long awaited weekend with her husband, three more days of blessed anonymity, a chance to leave Enkiss with its many intrigues behind, a chance to step out of her priestly life and Curate's responsibilities and enjoy - indulge in - a girlish vacation of dress-up... What could be wrong?

"I don't know."

xxx

Jimmy Palmer lays face down on the bed, nude, barely awake. He's slightly chilled, doesn't remember dressing again. All he remembers is a very pleasant late night. He's glad he'd let Michelle talk him into 'having his way with her', recalls it hadn't taken much convincing. He supposes he must have fallen asleep, exhaustion from the day coupled with quite a strenuous night.

How many times has he suspected 'Chelle of tapping into some mystical realm of sexual energy? Once again she had this overabundance of energy, or pure raw lust he most gladly tried to sate, even if it took–

"Hon-neeee," he hears sweetness at his right ear as he drifts up out of a dream into his lit bedroom. The room is as out of focus as ever, but he's never really needed his glasses to find 'Chelle. "Wake uuuuuuuup," his wife's honeyed voice gently coaxes.

He opens his eyes wider, it usually helps, but she's not beside him. He tries to turn over but his arms, raised to the corners of the bed, won't move.

Instantly awake though half-blind, he can still force focus well enough to see the wide black straps that encase his wrists to five inches up his arm. They're not tight enough to stop circulation but otherwise they're quite firmly secure and were definitely not there last night.

White ropes run from small D rings at the backs of his wrists to disappear under the corner of the mattress.

Incredulous, he tries to move his legs but encounters the same resistance. He pulls, looks back over his shoulder, barely able to strain far enough to see his ankles are tied to the corners of the Queen sized bed. He pulls harder, strains his arms and legs but the ropes hold fast.

They'd Pranked him the other day, 'Chelle and Sammy, but not like this. That had been completely unfair, but he'd gotten them both back, and they'd all enjoyed his payback, but _this _isn't funny.

x

"Don't bother, honey," he hears from behind him, but no matter which way he turns he can't get around far enough to see her well.

He can't see what's securing his ankles and up to his shins but they feel wider than the straps that lock his wrists and just as firmly secured.

He doesn't want to ask a stupid question like 'what are you doing?' so he settles for "Where did you get these?"

He tries to convey just how much he doesn't like them.

"Sammy brought them, Velcro bands she likes to be tied with when she plays her bondage games. You can't get loose." Of that he's sure. The bands must be unwrapped - by 'Chelle. "They won't cut circulation but I have to unwrap you."

"Yes, I'd appreciate that." No answer. "'Chelle?" He pulls again. Nothing. He quite definitely is not going anywhere. He tries, and fails, to keep his voice steady. "You're scaring me, hon."

"Don't want to scare you, want to make you feel better."

He tugs again, can't get an inch of play. This is obviously a definition of better he's never encountered before. "How?" he asks cautiously.

x

"You keep talking about guilt, driving me insane with your nightmares, with your... I can't reach you through one guilt after another; guilt for killing Franklin, guilt for having these nightmares, guilt for not being able to protect me–"

"Honey, if you'll just untie me I swear I'll protect you all you want."

"I never _wanted _you to protect me. I want my _husband _back, the man I fell in love with, the man whose been missing for the past year, the man I never had the chance tomarry. Gyves hasn't helped, Siobhan hasn't helped, magic won't help so I'm going to try this. I'm going to work off your guilt."

Nothing in this sounds like fun. "How?" Something touches his body, something thin that extends from his buttocks to the small of his back. He strains to look over his shoulder as she removes the thing and steps partially into his view on his right side, strains to focus. She shakes it, the long black thing wags for a moment but too quickly returns to an erect posture. "What's that?" 'Please don't tell me it's what I think it is.'

"Sammy loaned it to me. She told me what it's called, I don't remember. Specially treated leather, it's knitted, braded over itself over and over like you would hair, you know? She swears I won't break skin no matter how hard I hit but it'll hurt like _hell_."

"'Chelle, we can talk about this, right?"

x

She steps closer on the right side of their bed, now he can see her better though he has to squint to force his focus. She's naked too, but on her face she wears a black cat mask complete with whiskers and pointed ears above her straight black hair.

He can't help it. He starts to laugh.

x

"Sammy said it would get me in the _mood_."

He can't stop, can't keep his eyes on her, the out-of-focus sight only makes him laugh harder as she takes a step back. "Catwoman. You look ridiculous. You–" _Wwwww CrAcK _"YYEEOOOWWWGGGHHH!"

x

His body wants to bend in half backward but the ropes hold him as he tries the impossible of curling in a reverse fetal position to protect his buttocks from the lightning bolt that seared across them. Gradually, as his body begins to relax, he becomes aware that there's no second woosh, no second burst of agony ripped across his butt. When he can hear again what he hears is soft sobbing.

He looks back, has to squint hard to bring Michelle into focus. She's standing back from the bed, long handled weapon in her right hand, her body shaking with her sobs. "'Chelle?"

"Damnit," she throws the thing onto the carpet, "_damnit_" she rips the cat mask from her head and flings it across the room, "_damnit_! I'm _sorry_!" She falls to her knees across the bed, now he can't see her but she kisses him, sobbing as she kisses along the undoubtedly red line across his cheeks. "I'm sorry, honey, I'm _sorry_. _I'm sorry_."

"It's okay," he lies. Her kisses actually ease the pain. He's surprised at this and would tell her but she's crying so hard, kissing every bit of that line that barely hurts now, that he doubts she can hear him.

"I'm _sorry_," she sobs. "I thought it would _help_."

"Maybe it will."

x

He has no idea where those words came from or whichever of them is more surprised.

She picks her head up and, straining to look back over his shoulder, he can barely see her face.

"_What_?"

He's never heard her sound more incredulous, and he's feeling pretty amazed too.

"Maybe Sammy's right. Maybe you're right. Nothing else we've tried works." He swallows hard, steels himself. "Go ahead."

She pushes away to arms length from the mattress, wipes her face to shove tears from her eyes. "Are you nuts?"

"Definitely. But I'm sure Doctor Mallard can do two hours on the beneficial aspects of punishment to alleviate guilt."

"I can't do this."

"Sure you can."

"No, I _can't_." Nevertheless she gets off the bed, picks up the braided leather switch, but even with blurred vision he can see she's repulsed by it.

"Maybe you should put the cat mask back on... though it did make you look pretty _stupid_."

"Stupid?" She looks up at him, stricken, backs away.

"Yeah," he laughs, "not like a real S&M mask at all. _They're_ intimidating – I've heard. You're more like an _eight year old _playing dress-up_, _pretending you're Catwoman."

"_Jimmy_…."

"You know, that was the first time I really saw you for the _idiot _you [_wwsshh_] AAARRRGGGGHHH!"

xxx

Tim and Siobhan, returning from breakfast, must pause at the entrance to the Meritz. There's an ambulance parked out front and before they can enter through the nearest revolving doors the standard doors between them open and three EMTs escort a gurney upon which a groaning young man clutches his stomach. He's evidently in great pain, but there is little that the pair may do as the three men prepare the gurney to be placed inside the vehicle.

They enter the hotel through the revolving doors but once inside Siobhan turns around, blesses herself, then looks out at the scene and raises her right hand to silently inscribe a Cross before they turn and continue.

"You wanted to do more," he says.

"So did you."

x

There is, however, nothing more they can do and they head across the lobby filled with people checking in for the weekend, most of whom look like they're anxious to join the already bustling convention. Tim and Siobhan make their way to the escalator at the far left end; he wants to take an early peek before they dress in their indulgent costumes.

Siobhan can't bring herself to mind his enthusiasm; since yesterday he's more boyish than he'd been when he signed the contract for 'Cearbhall's Quest' and she's enjoying seeing this unrestrained side of him.

But as they reach the escalator on the lobby's left and she steps on the silver tread that would convey them to the first Convention floor they hear a woman's firm "Excuse me" come from their right. Tim halts, Siobhan turns but was a step ahead and it's too late for her as she's backed upward and away from the blonde woman who intercepts Timmy. She doesn't seem like a fan that's recognized a favorite author, her manner certainly doesn't convey hero worship, not with the firmness of that call. Siobhan, however, is blocked by other guests who boarded after her and must ride to the top of the escalator behind four other people before she may switch over and walk back down, descending faster than the normal pace.

Nevertheless, with the ambient noise of conversations in the lobby and the working of the mechanism, the woman walks away before she can get close enough to hear. By the woman's gait she's not happy, but Timmy looks even less so.

"A dissatisfied reader?" she asks as she steps beside him. The look he turns to her wipes away her humor. "What's wrong?"

She watches him push down real anger. "That was the Hotel Manager, Christina Ambrosino."

He shoves down more anger and she reaches out, pulls him a step further away from the escalators to a spot of at least presumed privacy.

"What's wrong?"

"I never told you about the last times we were here. Not really."

He's told her a lot, and since that was the occasion that sparked his romance with Ziva David she'd learned a lot more over the past few months. Between that and the News accounts, what's been left out?

Silence is usually the best way to draw him out, so she gives him only an expression of patient curiosity.

x

"At last year's Convention there were two murders, only that the first of them was Navy were we brought in. Ziva was kidnapped and the hunt for her was... pretty dramatic. But then a few months later we were involved in another case here, a woman who thought she was an actual Romulan agent tried to murder her boyfriend, a Starfleet Commodore."

"Do a lot of your cases revolve around Star Trek?"

He half-scowls at her. "You'll have to ask Tony with his devotion to linking movies to cases."

"You mean like Remington Steele? No thank you."

He's surprised. "You know, I forgot about that. That's going to be Tony's new nickname."

"You can thank mysteries posted to YouTube; they have loads of 'Remington Steele' episodes and I got hooked on them, but that's not what we're talking about."

"No, but they're more pleasant." She gives him nothing. "Well, anyway, Management seems to equate NCIS with trouble for their hotel. There was a naked woman painted as Batgirl–"

"Painted?"

"Painted. She was Midshipman Leslie Greene of the USS Mercado. That's what got us into the case, then a naked painted Wonder Woman was dumped down a garbage chute. Finally there was a major Search and Rescue for a naked painted Supergirl but we lost Ziva instead. The Management didn't like naked women turning up dead at their Convention."

"That wasn't _your _fault."

"No. But then Ziva went Undercover as Zatanna to smoke out the killer and we lost her. We interrupted the Costume Call when we and the FBI made a frantic search for her."

"But you found her. And you saved the third woman." She'd not going to mention the ill-starred relationship with Ziva that that incident had sparked. The less she remembers of that, the better she feels.

"Yes. But someone then talked too much a while ago about the hunt for Zabeth."

"Zabeth?" What or who is that?

"That was the name Elizabeth Stillwell chose for herself when she thought she was a Romulan agent."

"Romulan Agent?"

"Don't ask."

"I'm afraid to. No wonder you don't talk about your cases."

"Anyway, there's been blog, Facebook and Twitter speculation about what excitement there'll be at this year's Con. Reasonable people agree there probably won't be any drama this year, but speculators are undaunted by odds or reason. Ambrosino pretty much demands that nothing happen at this Convention or she'll ban future Comic Art Conventions."

"That _bitch_." He looks surprised. "How can she lay the blame for those things on you or demand _you _do something about the future? That's completely unreasonable."

"She doesn't have to be reasonable, she's the Manager."

"She's lucky I couldn't..." Looking up the three inches into his eyes, she immediately changes her mind. Her outrage isn't going to cool his. "Look, a chuisla, let's just forget this ever happened and enjoy the Convention?" She tugs him back to the escalator before he can answer.

xx

The escalator lets them off inside one of the ballrooms, though it requires an about turn to see it. It's barely after eight in the morning but the Dealers' Room is already crowded. "No," she decides.

"What?"

"I am not going in there yet. Too much. That panel last night was nice."

"You fell asleep."

"That's why I liked it."

He gives her a look that says 'you win'. "Okay. Let's go up and get dressed."

Into that costume? "Okay. Got to put it on sometime, even though it makes me feel like it's spray painted on."

She immediately regrets his smile and the light that shines in his eyes as his gaze pets her.

x

But as they turn back to the down escalator, there's a table piled with orange papers, he snatches one of them and she recognizes it as another Event Schedule such as which came with their Packets upstairs, which he reads as they descend. She looks over the immense lobby and they're near the bottom when his sharp exclamation grabs her attention. "What?"

"_Stan Lee_'s going to be in the Majestic Ballroom from four to six on Monday."

"That's nice," she grants, getting off and heading toward the elevators.

"Nice? _Nice_? It's Stan LEE."

"Yes, a chuisle, you said that," she confirms, still walking.

"Wait a second," he grabs her arm, turns her about. "You've never heard of _Stan _LEE?"

"No. Stanley who?"

"Martin Lieber, but that's not the point."

She looks around, there's an awful number of people staring at them. "No. Who's Stanley Martin Lieber?"

"Stan Lee."

She frowns up at him. "Darling, didn't you tell me once that circular logic loops are a bad thing?"

He visibly backtracks. "Darling, Stan Lee, along with his brother Larry Lieber, started Marvel Comics back in the 60's."

"So you're saying he's old."

He winces. "I'm saying he's the greatest Comic Book giant ever."

"So he's also tall?"

"_NO_! Well, kind of I guess, I never met him but that's not the point."

"Well, I'm glad he's important to you, mo vourneen. Tell me, have you ever used him in one of your books? Would I know him from there?"

"What? _No_! He's - he's - he's–"

x

"Wait," she presses her finger to his lips. "Didn't he create the Fab Four, Spider Thing, The Amazing Bulk and Doctor Strangelove?" She yanks her finger back, afraid he might nip it, but he glowers at her instead.

"You knew who he was."

"Yes, darling, I adored Doctor Strange - love - when I was a wee colleen, but you're just so much fun." Their, or rather his, audience is drifting away.

"Then why did you _do_ that?"

"Your conniptions are so entertaining."

"I don't know what I'm going to do with you–"

"Enjoy me, darling."

"- but it's gonna hurt."

She gives him fake fear, steps back, her hands protectively covering her butt until, with high spirits, they head toward the elevators.

xxx

"Oh my GOD." Jimmy Palmer can barely believe how much his butt and back hurt and how long the assault has lasted. Though 'Chelle promises there's no break in the skin, no blood, he's sure he's been cut to ribbons and the blood has soaked into the mattress. He can't feel the wet lines but he's sure they're there.

"Are you okay?" she asks, barely visible beside him. He tries to see her through pain squinted eyes.

"Am I okay? Am I _OKAY_?" The braided leather weapon had hurt like hell. "I never _imagined _that beneath that sweet, tender lotus blossom I'm married to lives a sadistic _bitch_."

"Well, you know 'hell hath no fury like a bitch witch'. And I am _not_ sadistic. You said I should."

"I figured you'd take it a bit easier."

"Did it help your guilt?"

"Yes." He's afraid to say no. "But I wonder if it was such a good idea. I never imagined you'd do this."

"You spank _me _sometimes."

He strains to look further back, can just barely see her nude body. "When you ask for it, as a warm-up to sex."

"You asked me. In fact, you goaded me into it."

"But not for sex." He sighs. "I'm just glad this is over."

She drops the weapon, gets on the mattress, kneels between his spread thighs. "_That _was just for the guilt of killing Franklin."

"What?"

"_This_ is for all those nightmares and every time I had to _die _in them."

"Wait, 'Chelle, _wait_ a second! I" _Slap_. "OWWWW!"


	5. Chaos

Chapter Five  
Chaos

Siobhan McGee, in bra and panties, sits before the mirrored table, lights lit on both sides so she may apply the scarlet makeup that will transform, or rather disguise her as Katma Tui. She mustn't slip too far into the indulgent fantasy of the weekend; she's already slipped into one indulgent fantasy - Timmy's - and tries to decide how she feels about it. The bra and panties she's wearing aren't hers, or rather they're not the ones she'd packed. When she'd opened her suitcase last evening she'd discovered that Timmy had again substituted for her underwear some outlandish examples of Victoria's Secret's excesses. He's done it before, quite a few times now, but this time he's gone so far as to gift her with several pairs, all very nice and sexy and frilly and feminine and she knows what he's thinking and hoping he'll get her to feel - but this time he replaced _all _of her choices.

Granted they're all lovely, she feels very sensual and she'd let him help her into them and his touches and affection had been great and she'd been quite stimulated but...

But darn it, he's left her with nothing but the wispiest smoke of material she can read through and that feel like if she puffed on them the red bra and panties would've fluttered across the room.

Yes, she likes his choices and his surprises and the way he goes out of his way to make her feel really sexy and she loves feeling sexy after so many years of downplaying sexiness for her public persona and his unexpected surprises but darn it he's left her with no choice this time!

She'd made herself sound grateful, these things really do feel nice even though when she looks at herself in the mirror she looks like she's wearing red mist.

But it really does look sexy, and his thinking she looks sexy is doing such things to her inside, but she keeps her silence until she can decide exactly how she feels.

He's left her with a choice she really doesn't want to have on this vacation. She can go along with this, and everything really is very nice and sexy, or she can slip away and buy some actual underwear and it'll be a slap to Timmy's face when he sees her in them. She doesn't want to hurt him or his feelings - and they're all really very nice and he spent a small fortune - why does smoke and mist cost so much more than cotton? - on making her feel good - and sexy - and building to she-knows-what and that's so great too, but _darn it,_ tomorrow they're going Service at Saint Andrews a few blocks away and she _can't _ go into a Church wearing...

Left with the only reasonable choice of silence until she can sort her feelings out, she sits in front of the bureau mirror beside the television, both wall lamps allowing her good light to put on her red makeup which will disguise her as the Korugarian Green Lantern Katma Tui.

Her ears were her biggest problem, she couldn't leave the canals her normal color but the red brush tickled horribly before she settled upon a hair style for the black wig which would hide the whole thing. She'd endured the sensations long enough to finish, then applied the scarlet lipstick. The last thing she'll do is pull on the black wig which will cover her fiery locks.

x

"How do I look?" Timmy asks, drawing her attention just as she finishes the scarlet make-up to her satisfaction and she's surprised to look right and find he's completed dressing while she was wool gathering. The blue, white and red Captain America costume fits him like a glove. Only the blue cowl with the large A for his forehead and the wings above his covered ears needs to be pulled into place.

This is the first time she's seen him in the iconic costume, and she immediately feels something she supposes he feels when he looks at her in this red mist. "Kind of _sexy_, a grá," she tells him with an appreciative smile.

"Thank you." He takes her hand, pulls her up into a hug but she presses her hands to the big white star on his chest.

"Honey, wait, we have to get dressed." She wants to kiss him so much but shies back from it. "Come on, my makeup will get all over you."

"It's supposed to be color fast."

"The lipstick is. Do you really want to risk the rest?"

Hand on the middle of her back, he pulls her closer. "Yes."

x

She pushes against him, evidently surprising him. His red gloved left hand is pressed to her back and she's not sure of his dexterity with the tiny clasp on the wispy garment that has less than a third the material of a real bra. She could blow through the cups of the tiny panties, if the word could stretch to include these red wisps. She pushes again, but not too hard because if he wanted to hold her trapped it'd be like pushing a tree. "Oh Lord Jesus, it's like I married an incubus."

"A what?"

"A _sex _demon." She pushes harder, backs him half a foot away but he keeps his grip on her squirming body.

"Nice to know I can still make you blush."

"You _always _make me blush, a chuisla, sometimes just by walking into the room." She turns from his kiss, catches sight of herself in the large mirror. "This is _not _blush," the scarlet makeup ends in uneven valleys low on her neck, below where the green suit's collar will be but "I look _ludicrous_."

"You've never looked ludicrous to me. You look sexy."

She turns back, incredulity filling her red face. "Sexy? This you call sexy?"

"Well, it is a new image."

She pushes him clear. She's never worn this kind or little material for more than a few minutes, he's proposed she wear it all day and she's half embarrassed and half stimulated and completely confused about what she should feel. If he threw her onto the bed he could deflower her again, this time right through the red wisp and she might momentarily regret the loss of the garment if the thought didn't excite her so much. He's so rarely forceful but if he wanted to carry through that caveman allusion from yesterday she'd gladly be a sufficiently helpless captive but then she'd have to start over, one set of flimsy underwear down.

"Come on, you're the one who wanted to be down by ten. Let me get dressed. _Please_?"

"Okay."

x

Tim simply can't do it. Fun is fun, and it really is fun but when his wife appeals like this he knows she's serious and he lets go.

She turns, takes the makeup case and bends low, puts it into the bureau's bottom drawer and he can't hold back. He reaches out, strokes the red panties' slimmest material, enjoys her warm softness even through the red glove.

"_IIIIIiiiiiii_!" She leaps upright, whirls and she's no longer pleading - she's madder than he's ever seen her. "Timothy I. McGee, _will you STOP_? I _am _married to an incubus!" He backs away from the lightning flashing her emerald eyes, but she follows, fury in every step. "_GOD_, when we _got _here, last night, this morning and now _now_? _Haven't you had ENOUGH_?"

He's really crossed some line, has to make it up, but how? He feels his knees blocked by the queen bed. "I... err... I guess so."

She grins. "Too bad," she shoves the star, he bounces on the bed and she hops on, straddling his hips, "because I _haven't_."

She quite thoroughly tests the durability of her makeup.

xxx

Gibbs leans over the rail of the London Bridge, overlooking the seemingly calm waters of the Thames as Big Ben begins its signature carillon prior to announcing the hour... but the sound mutates into his cell phone's announcement and the warm view of London is cut off by his bedroom walls.

'This had better be someone nuking Afghanistan' crosses his mind but the annoyance that prompts this thought falls away when he reads the screen. "What's up, Abs?"

/Gibbs, I found something you're going to want to know about _right away_./

He looks at his clock - and the date displayed as well. "Abs, it's ten o'clock on Saturday."

/I know, I worked all night on this./

He's about to remind her about his 'no Friday overnights into Saturday' rule until he remembers he and Holly had broken it too with little enough to show for the hours spent. He'd gotten home after eight but, from her tone, Abby's not as empty handed. "What've you got?"

/I was going over some of the debris of Chris Drakis' place./ Debris from that exploded house had scattered a full block in that suburban community. /I found some residue of the explosive that took out the house, it was ground into the carpet fibers in Drakis' living room./

"Distinctive?"'Coffee's too long away. Can I have some delivered?' "Go ahead."

x

/What's significant is that they're of an extremely high yield. Normal gunpowder is not as rich in boom dust./

"Boom dust?" He definitely needs that coffee.

/Give it to me, I've been working late. You can tell an IED maker, if it's handmade by one person, but by the signature characteristics this one is not improvised. It's a specialty job and the workmanship screams Frederick McAllister./

McAllister is one of the most Wanted men in America, a munitions expert working for any number of high bidders. His specialty, as Abby said, is high yield explosives. He doesn't know the most recent client McAllister would be working for but it'll be easy to check. If he's responsible for Drakis and NCIS can reel him in...

But much as it galls him, this is Arnell's case and he's already stepped on Higgins'. He can't do all the outstanding cases, much as he wants to, on his team's day off. "Thanks, Abs. Good work. Rosa Arnell has the weekend coverage; bring her up to date."

/Oh, I already did. I just wanted to make sure you knew./

"Go to _bed_, Abby."

/I'll be right over./

He breaks the connection.

xxx

Katma Tui and Captain America step off the elevator on the first of three ballroom levels, the level they'd reached earlier by escalator, into an undirected confusion of intersecting paths, scores of people going in every possible - and Katma suspects some impossible - directions.

Checking her watch, one of two concessions to normality, the other being her small shoulder purse, she realizes the cause of the confusion. This floor is devoted to two ballrooms of panels, one of expositions plus a movie theater showing a continuous collection of superhero films and someone, in a display of logic rather than wisdom, has scheduled each event and film to begin and end at the same time.

They join the crowd, Siobhan more self-conscious than Tim. She supposes it's because he's more used to being undercover but the truth is that this classic Green Lantern costume - and having seen Arisia's modified costume for sale on the web she refused to order it - is still too affectionate. With the exception of the Anglican style cassocks Timmy bought her as a wedding present, everything she wears 'in public' other than her street attire is flowing and concealing. Albs, dalmatics, chasubles and copes are not figure hugging; this green, black and white affection is so much so.

They start through the ballroom, it's one of the main Dealers rooms, comics and more, and as they walk arm in arm she glances at Tim, but he's looking down and she follows the direction of his gaze downward onto herself, then up to him

"Timmy, what?"

"What?"

"What are you looking at?" She checks her costume again, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong.

"Your emblem. It's very eye-catching."

She looks down again. The emblem he refers to is a white circular field in the middle of her green covered chest. The two parallel horizontal green lines above and below an open green circle are an iconic image for decades and don't seem in any way distorted or unaligned by their recent bout.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. You just add such _dimension _to that emblem."

"_Timm - mieyyy_..."

x

Seeing Timmy in his costume, however, has its own effect on her, despite her earlier teasing 'tantrum'.

She'd almost not made it downstairs, at least not without a long delay, but his one piece costume had defeated her efforts. However, when she pushed up from their kisses her ardor had shattered into peals of laughter, for her still damp makeup had turned out not to be colorfast.

She fell off his hips and was reduced to further helpless mirth every time she looked at him.

It took until she was fully ready, wig and all, for him to get the red off.

x

But now the plans and anticipation of wearing this costume, of stepping far out of her life, have deserted her and she prays not to meet anyone she knows. She got a good look in the large mirror in their room and was glad her face is already painted scarlet, as it saves her time.

The skin hugging material shows everything. She knows now that her regular bras would never do, so it turns out to be good after all that he'd switched them out of her luggage, though he could've asked. Even her normal panties would have been delineated by the uniform's tight rear, and she doesn't want to think of how she'd look from in front. What he'd selected for her is little more material than a smoky red wisp would be, and the bra she can also blow through the cups of. These are things she would never have thought to wear for more than fifteen minutes while getting Timmy's attention and doesn't want to think that now she's wearing them in public.

For all the full coverage of this costume - unlike so many women here not a square inch of her flesh shows beyond her painted face - she feels horribly naked. No one knows what she barely has on, she can't forget. This is why her ID card pinned to the small purse that hangs from a long strap running from her right shoulder to left hip like a Deacon's stole is turned toward her hip. This costume idea seemed a lot more fun in the planning than in the reality.

Timmy looks as dashing as the true Captain America, shield and all, while all she wants to do is dash away.

She fights the inclination, concentrates on the variety of wares on the tables she passes when soft, familiar music stops her and, arm in arm with him, he stops as well.

The music, coming from a small player set on one of the tables and angled outward, they recognize by the strings and flutes as being from Star Trek's classic 'Shore Leave' episode, specifically when Kirk had thought of his long lost love Ruth.

Last summer Timmy had left his iPod programmed with an excerpt from a CD in his car when they'd gone to a Fair, and though the music was the same he had programmed the player to display 'Siobhan's Theme'. He'd been so embarrassed then but now….

She turns to him and, under the flutes and strings she sees he has the same memories.

She's not sure how it happens, is sure neither of them thought of it, but his arms pull her close, hers go around him, she closes her eyes and their lips touch …

And the Convention vanishes. It's not here anymore. It's just her – and him – their bodies molding close as one and their tender embrace and more tender kiss and that music that plays on and on and on….

xxx

Gibbs, unable to sleep since Abby's Saturday call – these should be illegal when he's had only two hours rest – came into Headquarters, unsurprised to find her still hard at work, peering into her microscope at her freestanding workstation. Her music is a discordant mix of drums and some instrument he doesn't want to imagine. "Don't you ever go home?"

She turns and she's wearing that blasted silver spike collar and matching (fortunately shorter) spiked leather cuffs around a black tee shirt with a girl skull with a pink bow in its occipital bone.

"I've signed a lease on the Lab and I'm subletting my apartment to Sammy."

"Don't. First thing she'll do is paint the place white and gold. What did you find?"

"You mean since you hung up on me?"

"Get used to it."

"Years ago. Fortunately I have some things to help you out."

"I thought you would."

"You thought right, Oh Silver Zorro. For instance, I was able to get a footprint from one of Chris' kitchen floor tiles. The guy wears a size 14 triple E Adidas, which matches McAllister."

"Big foot."

"I have a BOLO out for Sasquatch."

x

It's sometimes hard to be sure when she's kidding. Fortunately for her, his cell phone cuts off whatever he was going to say. She looks surprised, however, when the end of that call results in his need for a rapid fire series of calls to summon DiNozzo, David and Palmer.

"What's up?" she asks when he's finished.

"Up is you checking your email and identifying the fingerprints Arnell's team found in Drakis' kitchen ceiling. Is it McAllister? The fragment with the fixture was found in some neighbor's back yard cellar, probably fell right through the open door."

"Let's hear it for the hand of God."

"I get enough of that from McGee."

She smiles saucily. "Which one?"

"Lately both of them."

"They're rubbing off on each other."

"Too much rub–" He shuts himself up before fatigue makes him say more than he should. She turns, as much to keep him from seeing her smile. His hand on her arm turns her back. "What else?"

"Nothing else."

"You've been working in here for 29 hours. When you ID those prints, I want you to send them to Arnell and then go home to sleep."

"I can't sleep, Gibbs. I've tried." He takes the large white and red plastic cup of Caf-Pow! from next to her keyboard and drops it into the garbage pail under her workstation. "Won't help."

"What will?"

x

He watches the debate play across her features. He's not sure who wins.

"Can we talk?"

He's waited several days to hear these words from her. "Talk."

"I've got to get out of here."

"That's what I said."

"No, not out of here, out of here. Out of Washington."

"Your vacation's already in and approved a couple of weeks ago."

"No, I mean I have to go _now_, as soon as I wrap things up with this Drakis case. I have to go home, to Louisiana, to Jefferson Parish, and I don't know how long I'll be gone."

"No."

x

She stares at him, stunned and dumbfounded. "How can you say that, Gibbs? I always thought–"

"You can't solve all of Caldwell's problems, not in two weeks, and we can't spare you for six months."

"Wha–? Did Ducky–?"

"You think you can go through the motions as Abbybot while stressing over your friend and I wouldn't notice? I just waited until you finally worked yourself up enough to tell me."

"They put her in an _Institution_."

"What could you have done to stop it?"

"I could've... I could've... I should've–"

"Done nothing. She got the care her doctors and family thought would be the best cure for her."

"They fired her from the school. All those kids–"

"They furloughed her while she was sick. Can you picture her having an attack in front of twenty kindergarteners?"

She turns away. "Darn it, Gibbs, do you have to be so logical?"

"One of us has to."

Anger turns her, reason stops her. "I can't be rational, not about Dawn, not after what she's been through, not after ..."

"What happened in Virginia isn't your fault, neither is what happened in your apartment. That one's Mawher's fault and he paid for it. She's not your babysitting charge anymore. She's a grown woman with charges of her own. She's been through hell, more than most perps deserve, but you can't go charging in to save her. Not again."

x

She's silent for a long time, a very long time before she can force herself to ask: "What do I do?"

"Take your vacation as you planned, do everything you were going to do before you found out about her. If she wants you to know she's having problems, she'll tell you. Go as her friend, not her savior, and let her keep her dignity."

He starts to walk away.

"No, Gibbs, I can't do that." He halts, surprised. Her refusal borders on defiance. "I can't wait. I spoke to Ruby Rae, spoke to the Director, when this case is over I'm going."

He comes back, close and pitches his voice so that even in a crowd only she would hear. "You're making a mistake."

"Gibbs, I'm going, and Ruby's taking over. Like it or not, the Director approved it. If you don't want me to go I'm going. If you order me not to go I'm going. If you strip me naked and tie me spread eagled on a bed I'm go–"

"Abs."

"What?"

"Have a good flight. Take care of your friend."

"Darn, it was just getting interesting."

He kisses her cheek, walks away. "Too interesting."


	6. Images

Chapter Six  
Images

Captain America and Katma Tui, switching rooms from a showing of the 1994 Fantastic Four movie - also known as the Fantastic Flaw - to a scheduled panel on DC Comics upcoming titles, pass a statuesque blonde woman wearing a white 'Thor' tee shirt, the spinning hammer of the aggressive Thunder God a blur either artfully or accidently encircling her right breast. "Hello," Tim says.

She stops, looks up at him uncertainly. "Hi." More close scrutiny. "Do I know you?"

"Oh, sorry, the mask, I forgot." He pushes it back off, which is unfortunate for his hair. "Special Agent Tim McGee, NCIS. We met last year."

She takes a step back. "Oh, _no_."

"Is any woman ever happy to meet you, darling?" Siobhan asks with a smile that removes the sting. She notes the woman's name printed on the tag above the red 'STAFF' ribbon is Avgata Goodbody. 'I guess I can't argue with that.'

"Oh, it's not that," the statuesque woman hastens to correct.

"Cathy Hinley is in charge of the Convention." He introduces Siobhan, which only makes the woman more uncomfortable.

"I wasn't saying 'oh, no' about your husband. It's just that..."

"Timmy told me about last year's excitement."

Hinley turns to him. "Please don't do it again."

"Women never seem to want you to do it again."

"Will you _stop_?" She gives him a devastating grin. "Now who's incorrigible?" To Hinley: "I promise, no NCIS cases during this convention. I have the weekend off." He notices Katma Tui's still smiling at him. "What?"

"Shouldn't make promises you can't guarantee, darling."

"I'm guaranteeing this one."

xxx

Tony, feeling wretched this too early Saturday morning - even if it is nearly eleven - when the team was most definitely not supposed to be doing another weekend rotation but was to have the holiday weekend - if not the holiday - off, looks up when a shadow crosses his desk. Nikki Jardine stands before him, a quartet of file folders in her hand. "Hi, Nikki."

"Special Agent DiNozzo."

It's the flattest tone and emptiest greeting he's heard in days and she's a good four and a half feet from his desk. For the moment they're alone, but he feels especially alone in the woman's presence.

He decides to brass it out. "What've you got?"

"Printouts of the OMPFs of the four Seamen who stole the uranium. Agent Gibbs wants you to find something in here to be used to break them." She holds out the folders but even if he leaned his ribs into the edge of the desktop they'd still be almost four inches too far apart.

He doesn't intend to lean. "Come on, Jardine, I don't have the plague - again."

"I know." But she comes in only close enough to complete the hand-off, her manner shouting that she's not distancing herself due to fear. "If you'll excuse me - sir."

"No, I won't."

She appears for just an instant like she'll stay, surprised at his refusal, but then "Too bad."

x

She turns and is halfway out of the bullpen when he's out of his seat and around his desk. "Wait a minute."

The command halts her; she only gives in enough to turn and face him. "Is that an order, Special Agent?"

"Yes."

She stiffens her posture. "Very well, Special Agent, you do outrank me. What do you want?"

"I want to call a truce."

"A truce. This isn't a battle."

"No, it's worse, and it's not fair. When Trovillot and his cohorts were posting fake pictures of you all over the Internet, who sat with you for over an hour in the Conference Room while you poured your soul out?"

She can't meet his eyes, becomes very interested in the carpet. "You did."

"And whose team caught them?"

"Gibbs'." His hand gestures draw out the grudging admission. "Yours." But then she looks up into his eyes. "But we trusted you in those days."

"I'm still the same guy."

"Now you're scaring me."

x

"Nikki, how am I going to make this right–"

"We don't trust you."

"- if you won't trust me?"

"Don't you get it yet? _None _of us trust you. You betrayed a trust, the trust of someone we all respect. You read private emails between a husband and wife and don't you _dare _say that as a Federal Agent you can because I'll make sure no one _ever _forgives you!"

He's surprised by her fire, but sees there's more fire to come.

"You betrayed a trust, started a horrible rumor and I can't imagine how badly you hurt the McGees. Yes, you confessed, but you did it for selfish reasons, to stop a rumor that you were paying for _because you started it_.

"Now you want us women to trust you again? _No_. We _won't _trust you. You did this to one of us, you _can't _prove you won't do it again."

"I won't. I swear I won't."

x

She sighs, but it's more sadness than exasperation. "Tony, there are two kinds of agents in NCIS; there are men and there are women. We women have to know we can trust you men. I'm not talking about in a firefight, we _know _that if someone's shooting at us you'll grab your Sig and defend us. I'm talking about here, now, when it's just you and us in a simple human relationship and interaction and none of us trust you."

"How can I make this right?"

"I honestly don't know that you can." She shakes her head. "'Tony DiNozzo the Playboy' was one thing; you played the game and we played too. There were rules and everyone followed them. It was fun. We talked among ourselves, shared more than you'll ever guess; we all knew where everyone stood and when one of us would succumb to your charms - and you are a charmer - she'd know you play by the rules. If you'd take one of us out, it'd be nice, we knew we were safe. There's not a teenager anywhere in this building and if you did charm any of us into your nefarious clutches it was still part of the game and we _all _knew the rules as well as you did."

"But–"

"_But you broke the rules_. You _shattered _them. You risked - almost destroyed - a good woman's reputation because you didn't _think_. You didn't respect her privacy; you thought nothing of her reputation or her place or her life and you didn't respect _her_. Oh you can swear that you did and do, you can swear it until you're blue in the face but we're not going to believe you."

x

"I still want to make this right. That's why I made that film."

"Well it was a stupid thing to do, because you may have seen it as an efficient way of quelling a rumor, _we_ saw it as a way of you excusing yourself and trying to get out of paying for your crime, which is one reason why we're giving you not just jail time, but solitary plus hard labor."

"Reverend McGee forgave me. Right away."

She sighs heavily. "She's a priest, what do you expect? They turn the other cheek, no matter how much that first slap hurts. She's also married so you never were going to date her.

"Damn it, don't you get it yet? Whether she can trust you again, whether she can forgive and forget, we _won't_. We all agree on that. You want our trust, you'll have to earn it again from each of us."

"Starting with you?"

x

She thinks about it for a moment. "I guess I'm pretty typical of all of us, and I _do _owe you, so I'll give you my answer for today."

"Yes?"

"Go to Hell, Anthony DiNozzo." She turns about and walks out of his life.

xxx

'This is why I didn't want to come to any of the Dealers' Rooms,' Siobhan thinks as she navigates her way through a field of white noise and too many bodies, recalling for her the 'Mark of Gideon' Classic Trek episode. Actually, it's not white noise she hears, that she could deal with. It's the constant background and foreground and midground drone of two thousand people all speaking at once. It's not that anyone is speaking loudly, she can still hear every conversation within a few feet around her, but beyond that it's an almost palpable field of noise, words upon words and voices upon voices until it feels like she's drowning in an auditory flood.

As she walks behind Timmy, her right hand holding his – the only way they can walk and make progress – she longs for Captain America's shield, because wearing a skin tight green, black and white Green Lantern costume isn't the greatest thing when bodies press on all sides. 'If I feel one more hand brush against me I'm going to take that shield and dent it over someone's _head_.'

x

She slaps left handed at a so-called innocent touch while at the same time trying not to let Timmy feel the motion through his right hand held behind him. If it is indeed innocent it's one of few but she doesn't want to risk a scene. She knows he won't hesitate to confront whomever took advantage of the crowd.

And it's not as though she can actually blame people, for this room has a legal capacity of 1600 and there's probably 4,000 people in it and the only people with any room are the dealers safe behind tables. She can't even get close to a table, but must walk equidistant from each side and search the surfaces between bodies for anything that catches her eye that she would actually tug Timmy so she could go close enough to look at the wares.

Unfortunately, they've left the only Comics Dealers' Rooms she cared about. The three ballrooms on the middle floor are set in 1950's and before, 60's through 1990 and 1991 to today. 'Today' is the era of the private publisher, where anyone with a pen considers himself an artist and anyone with a Xerox machine is a publisher. Most of the 'art' she sees, when she can peek between bodies, she wants to get no closer to, and the examples of work pinned to walls or standing upright on posters make her want to run for the other side of the room – if that were any better. She longs to get back to the other rooms.

The other ballrooms, covering the eras dominated by Marvel and DC and many of the other competitive comics, were the era when an Artist had to be good or he starved. DC and Marvel and the other major companies had no starving artists.

So far as she's concerned, this room has too few artists.

x

"Enjoying yourself, hun?" Timmy asks, looking back over his shoulder, for single file is the only way through and with his size - to say nothing of his shield - he's like an arctic icebreaker.

"Oh, yes, darling. It's … indescribable."

"I thought you'd be impressed."

"Oh, yes."

He turns to her and she can't keep it up, that last assurance had been pretty flat. "You want to get out of here?"

"_Please_." They turn back toward the exit. Now she's leading and feels her backside is safe. If he touches, it's neither unpleasant nor accidental.

"You only had to ask."

She looks back to him with a sensual grin. "I thought you were trying to make me beg."

She can read in his eyes the thought this sparks and turns forward to navigate the crowd, to find the eventual spaces that'll lead to freedom. He's just going to have to wait if he does want to hear any begging, if that's his idea of a Superhero-inspired good time.

But as she walks, since he's close enough to block anyone else's view, she gives him a saucy hint of what he might earn if he's good.

Or bad.

xxx

Seaman Albert Sparks struggles to see through bleary eyes as the door to his cell in Bethesda Hospital – okay, hospitals don't have cells but the next best thing – opens and a woman enters. He's been in an emptied store room for days, only let out for bathroom breaks while three men and a woman take turns asking him questions.

This time it's the woman, Special Agent Carol Senise, and she doesn't look happy at all. As soon as the door is closed she slaps a manila folder onto the table.

"Enjoying your room?"

"I've known bigger closets."

"I'll make sure your cell in Gitmo is smaller," Senise swears, in favor of one six foot long by two wide.

"You sound angry."

"Humans don't get angry at roaches, we exterminate them."

"You're going to be one of the first to fall under–"

"Spare me your new world order bullshit, I get enough of that from my thirteen year old nephew. New world order, Atheists, the Jewish Bankers, the KKK, the American Nazi Party, the Illuminati or whatever's the bogeyman of the week, you're all on this world dominion kick and if I hear about it one more time I'm going to vomit on you."

"It's true.

"True. I'll tell you something, Sparks - you're _done_. You're not going to live to see it. They didn't get all the radiation out of any of you. A couple of weeks, you're going to be nothing more than a radioactive stiff in a wooden crate we'll hammer together and bury twenty feet deep in the Shenandoah where your radioactive dust won't disturb anyone."

"What? You can't do tha–"

"You're done. Oh, they could give you another treatment, it'll probably work but we're not going to let the doctors do that."

"Why?"

"Because traitors don't get mercy. You like the way Jihadists do things? You love Muslim fanatics who even the Muslims hate? Good, because since you don't respond to mercy or kindness we're going to use Taliban techniques to get our answers."

"What do you mean?"  
She pulls from the file three 8x10 color pictures and spreads them out. One is a brunette woman, the boy is 7 and the girl is 5.

"You won't talk, we'll find out what _they _know."

"Wha...? Wait!"

"You want Jihadist methods, you love them so much? We've got Agents grilling the kids over a nice fire while _she _watches. You want to keep silent? _They'll _talk."

x

It's a dangerous game, lie upon lie, but if Sparks weren't awake through days of around-the-clock interrogation, each agent using a different technique, this sledgehammer approach wouldn't work. But having a woman announce the interrogation of his children, maybe she's starting to see the first cracks.

xxx

Some Dealers' Rooms in the Greater East Coast Comic Art Convention are less packed with people than others and eventually, on the Con's upper floor, Tim spots a familiar sight. "Come on, you'll love this." He leads Siobhan to a booth rather than a table, and on the blue shelf up front several thick binders rest for easy perusal. The walls on either side are covered with Fantasy and Sci-Fi portraits of fans whose bodies are enhanced by everything a fertile mind can conceive. "Hi."

"Hello there," the man greets him cordially from behind a brown moustache and beard and a head of curls that together make him look like he has a brown tribble on his face.

"You probably don't remember me."

"Steve Rogers."

Tim touches his face, feels beyond his red glove the blue half cowl marked with white A on his forehead, remembers the white wings jutting out over his covered ears. "Well, I walked right into that one." He peels off the mask, brown tribble looks closely.

"Can't say I do."

"Special Agent Timothy McGee, NCIS. You helped us out last year with the pictures of Midshipman Leslie Greene and her friends."

"Oh." It's not a pleasant memory. Last year he'd provided the Agents with the enhanced images of not only Leslie Greene but her missing companions, but two of the three young women had been brutally tortured to death.

He visibly pushes the memory aside, his salesman persona reactivating. "Oh _yeah_. I remember you now. How _are_ you?"

"Just fine. This is my wife, Siobhan."

The man reaches out, takes her hand. "Afternoon, Katma, I'm Bob Hostler."

x

She smiles. "I guess I'm going to have to get used to that."

"Here, at least. _Great_ costume."

"Thanks." He at least is discreet, he's not sounding like he's looking through it, and he keeps his eyes on hers.

"How about a picture?"

She's about to turn down the offer, she isn't thrilled with the idea of people seeing her like this outside the venue of a comic convention, but the look in Timmy's eyes makes her say "Sure, why not? What's involved?"

He opens one of the thick ring binders. "Choose your background, I superimpose you over it."

She drops from thumb and forefinger pages of superheroes, epic battles, fantasy dimensions, cityscapes, mountains, rivers and lakes, space shots, spaceship interiors, aliens of a thousand races, alien planets... "This one."

She's chosen a scene from the surface of one of Saturn's moons, the huge planet and its glorious rings high in the sky to the right, the vista of space on the upper left.

"Excellent choice. Come right in," he opens a door on the booth's side, "and step to the back." There's a seven foot tall chromakey green drape tacked to the rear wall, the color designed to blend out of the picture though it won't affect the emerald of her costume.

She'd intended to strike a formidable Superheroine pose but, seeing Timmy's attention, she decides on a sexier, more sensual position. She lights the green ring on her hand and rests the white glove on her thigh, other hand on her hip, her posture relaxed and not at all threatening.

With a few brief suggestions Hostler enhances her pose for the camera.

When he's done she comes out and the image appears on the monitor set upon the counter. "Now, to add realism, I can light up the ring more, make it gleam, and give you a protective aura like Green Lantern uses when she flies through space."

"Sounds sexy," Tim says appreciatively, and Bob and Siobhan exchange a knowing look. This is a definite sale. "When will it be ready?"

"You staying for the whole Con?"

"Yes."

"Then in the morning."

Tim looks from the sexy image to the real woman. "Great."


	7. Enslaved

Chapter Seven  
Enslaved

"DiNozzo, what've you got?" Gibbs demands as he passes into the bullpen, his third large cup of coffee of this late morning in his hand.

Tony's glad that, if he has to be the target with Probalicious and the Probette at their desks, at least he has something. "Abby ID'd that print found on Drakis' ceiling fixture, took her all of three seconds. Frederick McAllister, who holds an unenviable record of being one of the more prolific bombers in the world, services to the highest bidder. He has a price on his head so high even my father couldn't spend it all."

"Impressive," he sets down the cup, sits behind his desk. "Where is he?"

"Dad? Monte Carlo if I know him, he always loved it there in the spring." Gibbs leans forward, his eyes doing impressive imitation of twin phaser banks building to overload. "Oh, you mean McAllister," he says with too much feigned innocence. "No idea, boss, but we have word out to the TSA, FBI, CIA, LRB -"

"LRB?"

"Labor Relations Board. I figure working with this psychopath must be a bitch."

"Other words, you've got nothing."

"We've got nothing. Correction," his showman side peeks out, "we've got nothing _yet_, boss. I figure if we don't know where he is, we can track where he isn't. Must be a lot of people happy when this guy leaves."

"InterPol," Ziva cuts in before her partner earns a head slap, "has him on everyone's 'No Fly' list, so if he is in the country he either came in in disguise or on a private plane. I am checking one, Michelle has the other."

xxx

Siobhan and Timmy approach the double mahogany colored doors of one of the third floor ballrooms, free of the continuous sound of a thousand people all speaking at once and they're almost knocked off their feet by a woman who bursts out of the doors, shoves past them and runs across the wide hall and out of sight in the crowd. They exchange glances, uncertain about the woman's mad rush.

"She didn't look well," Tim observes, to which Shav will only shrug. He knows she won't speculate even on this. She very rarely does.

They enter the ballroom to find a well crowded panel discussion among four people at the far end of the huge room. It is easily 200 feet away yet the loudspeakers at the ceiling carry the voices quite distinctly. Tim quickly discerns that the discussion is on the prospect of bringing the Marvel character Iron Man back for a potential second movie. His 'origin' story, released less than a year ago, was quite a success, so he figures the next one should be better.

There are few available paired seats and they walk along the left wall past the main divide that separates the seating into four huge sectors before selecting a pair some yards inward, roughly midway in the aisle. Captain America gallantly leads Green Lantern Katma Tui to them, all the while trying not to hit anyone with his shield.

Settled in, Katma is fairly attentive to the discussion among those she decides, not having the printed schedule, are involved in the Special Effects aspect of the proposed film. After about twenty minutes, while the panelists are going on about the technical aspects of bringing Iron Man's armor out of an attaché case to mold automatically to Robert Downey's body, Katma feels fingertips tickling her from behind very low on her seat. She turns, about to issue a blistering reprimand to the owner of those questing fingers but there's no one directly behind her. The invasive fingers have slipped from her right into the opening between the chair back and cushioned seat.

"Timm - _mmee_," she says quietly, sitting back onto the seat, "will you _not _do this?"

"Is anything wrong?" he asks in faux innocence, his fingers again teasing her. She moves up rather than away, but this only allows him much greater access - and she comes down, quite effectively trapping his hand.

"Ah - Shav - that–"

"Is more effective than a handcuff."

He tries to free himself, she presses more firmly. "Could you let me go?"

She grins at him. "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Romans 6:12."

"Okay, you've made your point. I'm sorry."

She rises enough for him to pull his hand out. "But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, **patience**." She gives him a slow smile. "1 _Timothy_, 6:11."

"Some day."

"Yes, darling, so you say."

xx

She settles in again to listen to the panel, and after a minute her annoyance has faded. The movie people have moved on to a discussion of the villain of the film, who uses some kind of high tech whip she feels is a bit too S&M-ish and she turns to the wing-templed Captain on her right to say so and notices he's more attentive to the HP iPaq in his hand.

She'd bought him the portable novel writing tool as a belated wedding present after their 'loving discussion' on her sleep versus the staccato clicking of keys on the typewriter he used for writing his books. Now at least he can write in silence, no more clacking of keys and whirring of shredder - Harry Salgame had once referred to it as sounding like Timmy was electrocuting sheep - but she hardly expected him to be hard at work during one of his precious panel discussions.

x

She leans closer until she can read on the small screen 'unbeknownst to Tibbs and his team but knownst to Kilgarin...'.

"Knownst?" she mutters into his blue cowl-covered ear.

"Hush, I'm on a roll."

"With entirely too much butter." This brings him out of his writing mode, makes him look directly at her. "Comes of being surrounded by so much comic book writing for inspiration."

"I'm exploring, thinking about spinning off my series into graphic novels."

She entwines her arms about his left one. "Sweetness, your novels are graphic enough."

"What do you–?"

"Cearbhall and Princess Mairenn, when he claimed his prize for the quest?"

"Oh. Yeah. Well, the readers expect things like that. It's called the payoff."

"I certainly did not. You had me blushing for a week, since _I_ was the payoff." He too frequently chooses friends and people he knows to populate his books. At least she was able to prevent him from casting her again after that 'Elf Lord' debacle.

"Blushing?"

"Yes."

He examines her scarlet face closely. "How could anyone tell?"

"Careful, a chuisle," she whispers, moving closer, "or I'll nuzzle you again."

"That's a threat?"

"To Captain America's dignity."

x

But before she can say more she notices distant movement past him, across the center aisle and other island of fans and along the far right wall. A red haired Slave Leia from Star Wars 'Return of the Jedi' makes her way along a line of standees - the room had filled quite thoroughly while she was focused on the panel. A red haired Leia is incongruous enough, but most notable is her costume - or lack thereof. The girl's wearing less than many other Leias Siobhan has seen - even the slave girls. She has to side step as she slips past people to make her way along the front of the right wall, encountering considerable and quite undeserved difficulty in staying unmolested by people's 'accidental' brushes.

The girl's clad, if the word can stretch nearly to breaking to apply to this, in a metal slave collar with large ring at her throat, gold metal filigree bra that reveals more than it hides while two long strips of flimsy purple material in front and back don't come all the way about her hips. There's a gold metallic something at her abdomen that seems to serve no purpose whatsoever; it's not low enough to protect her crotch in the event of a side breeze, and only seems placed to accentuate the frailty of her so-called protection. The wide gap of bare flesh at each hip is more than enough to make obvious even at this great distance that the woman, perhaps not quite twenty, isn't wearing even a G-string.

Siobhan can understand the interest of those the girl works her way past, though she certainly doesn't approve. In fact she feels quite sorry for her. She'd had her fill of getting through Gideon crowds without feeling 'accidental' brushes or touches. She'd been tempted to bend more than one finger back into an unnatural position if she could turn fast enough to catch her culprit red-handed, but where she's completely dressed Leia is virtually naked.

It's Leia's right to wear what she wants, stupid as the choice may be, but as the girl slaps a hand off her thigh Siobhan finds herself at odds. Perhaps the redheaded Leia brought the attention by her choice, but she certainly doesn't deserve the molestation that goes with it.

x

"What's up?" Timmy asks softly, probably sensing her disapproval in the tension of her arms wrapped about his. She points to his right to the young woman, it's not hard for him to spot the minor disturbance. "She's going to have half those guys chasing her," he predicts, his tone disapproving, at least before her, of how far over the top the girl has gone.

Leia's - and she's never seen a redheaded 'Slave Leia' - breasts are covered by the half-bra's material and gold metal French curls but she's otherwise naked as an extra wide sidestep intended to help her escape faster proves. The two purple strips cover far too little and that gold metal piece too high above her crotch is no shield. Thankfully there're indoors for an outdoor breeze would reveal everything the girl has. As she makes her way across the edge of the long crowd she stops short, turns to glare back and up into a grinning face. Siobhan can read every muscle in her upper body, she really wants to hit the guy.

"Oh, oh," Timmy says.

But Leia does no more than glare before moving on, and they can read in her face even at this distance that aggravation is spilling into real anger.

"Maybe she's on her way to put on some clothes," Siobhan hopes.

"She's going to have _some _guy chasing her otherwise."

x

Siobhan suspects, however, that despite his tone he wouldn't be quite so negative if she weren't sitting right here.

"Well, you know what they say," she snakes her right arm about his shoulders and leans in more closely, determined to push back the annoyance she feels on the girl's behalf, "beidh cíche i gceannas ar fear in áit ar bith."

He turns to her with a smile. "They say that, do they?"

"Oh, yes." She kisses him with sustained care. No more accidental transfers.

"What do they say when they're in America?"

She softens her voice to an intimate whisper into his cowl covered ear. "A breast will lead a man anywhere."

x

He turns back to check the girl's progress, she's made it most of the way to the rear of the room. "_HM_!"

Siobhan feels his arm tense, there was an overabundance of interest in that exclamation as he turns almost out of her grip. He's looking back now, turned almost completely around in the chair and even from behind him now Siobhan can virtually feel his eyes cemented on the petite woman's bare body. With every side-step she risks displaying far more than her bare legs.

Leia's almost to the door when, to her amazement, Timmy pulls out of her light grip, almost makes her fall as she'd been leaning against him until she rights herself. He leaves his round shield propped against the forward row of chairs. "Excuse me," is his only explanation back to her as he moves quickly right along the row, squeezes quickly past dozens of knees until he reaches the main aisle, turns and runs to the back doors.

x

Siobhan's too astonished to be outraged at his wildly inappropriate and uncharacteristic behavior. Granted the girl is 98 percent naked, perhaps the very opposite of her own classic Green Lantern costume, but there are standards of decorum and...

'To HELL with it!'

She snatches the red, white and blue shield from where it leans against the backs of chairs before her, determined to dent it over his head if he doesn't have a good explanation.

x

Getting free of the last of the chairs and into the wide middle aisle, she sprints to the doors, doesn't care a whit what image she presents, Green Lantern Katma Tui armed with Captain America's shield. She reaches the back doors, ignores the Staffer's urging to slow down as she slams the door's panic bar – she'll show it panic – and shoves the barrier out of her way.

This is the first time she's ever felt jealous over Timmy and she does _not _like it.

x

A fast search right and left, Captain America and the redheaded Leia are forty feet to her left in the midst of human traffic. She finds them easily enough because they're the only ones standing still in a crowd of omni-directional fans. The majority of the Conventioneers are dressed as normal, reasonable humans and they three are part of the ten percent in costumes, darn it. Siobhan notices now that there's a thin golden chain at Leia's right hip holding the two purple, ankle length strips up but she is absolutely not wearing _anything _under them. Further, rather than the brown boots Carrie Fisher wore, this 'Slave Leia' is barefoot and her pixie-cut red hair barely tops the white star on Timmy's chest. She's probably only five feet, as tall as Sammy Sky, not as much so as Michelle Palmer.

She's also close enough now to add about five years to the girl's - young woman's - age. She's closer to 25, but still too young to be attracting Timmy's attention as she is.

She can't hear what they're saying from forty feet away through the passing partiers, but gets only two steps when she halts, astonished at the sudden terror that appears on the girl's face. Timmy reaches out to her and Leia grabs his left pinky, bends it back hard to move him away and her voice cuts through the corridor and turns every head.

"GET YOUR HANDS _AWAY _FROM ME, CREEP. I am not for rent _or _sale." She lets go, slams both palms hard into the star on Timmy's chest, staggers him backward. "I'm _already owned_, PERV."

She snap turns away, walks quickly through the crowd that opens a path for her rage. Her pace is faster than is wise for the long purple strips that precede and follow her but in seconds she's gone, absorbed into the staring crowd.

x

Most people turn to follow her very bare retreating body but several still stare at the out-of-character Captain America, many disapproving, many amused, but since he just stands still he quickly loses their interest.

Only then does the still astounded Katma Tui step up beside the Avenger, facing after the departed former Princess rather than her still husband. She needs these seconds to recover from the shock of his outrageous behavior. She's not sure what to do with the shield in her hands; give it to him or hit him with it.

"Timmy?" she turns to look at him, can read astonishment past his blue mask. _He's _astonished? "Is there something you feel you should be telling me?"

"Yes," he answers from a great distance, still clutching his wounded finger. "But I don't know why."

He did _not _just say that.

x

Outraged more than incredulous, she makes her decision about what to do with the shield if he gives her one more wrong answer. She steps around in front of him. They're married less than ten weeks but "_Excuse me_?" She has trouble keeping her voice low, and even to her own ears her brogue is sharp enough to draw his blood. "How about 'if you don't tell me, I am going to be really _pissed'_?"

He has _never_ given her cause to doubt his integrity and husbandly devotion, but if he intends to make up for all that time now, 'pissed' is the least of his dangers.

x

"What?" He snaps out of his fugue and it's like he's seeing her for the first time. "No, that's not what I mean." He looks about the crowded hall - not everyone has gone his or her own way yet - grabs her arm, pulls the shield out of her loosened grip and, only one secure place remaining, he quick marches her back to and into the ballroom from whence they'd emerged. Ignoring the Staff person at the door, he raises the round metal to block them from the room - or the room from them - and pitches his voice so low only she can hear.

"That's NCIS Special Agent Nell Jones, the Intelligence Analyst from the Office of Special Projects, _Los Angeles_."

Siobhan felt her face drop by the time he got to 'Jones'. Now she looks deeper beyond his mask, only half of things becoming clear. "Did she know it was you?"

"I called her by name, she stopped. I started to tell her who I am but she'd already recognized me - we've video-conferenced on tech issues dozens of times - but she grabbed my pinky." He clutches the pained digit in the red glove.

"I saw." She's no longer jealous, tells herself she had no cause to be, but it only partially washes away the rancid taste. "What is she doing here? Is she under cover?" If she weren't, meeting a friend / colleague at a Comic Book Convention wouldn't spark that reaction. If she were afraid of anyone who knows her seeing her 98 percent nude, she wouldn't have dressed like Slave Leia.

"She's an Intelligence Analyst, not a Field Agent. She's tech, basically a female me. Still..."

x

Tim puts down the shield, leans it against his leg, then reconsiders, picks it up and leads her into the far left corner. He maneuvers her into the corner so his back is to the crowded room, pulls out his cell phone from a color camouflaged red pouch at the abdomen of his costume, determined to get to the bottom of this minor mystery before he can return his full attention to his fun.

The fingers of his glove are thin enough that he doesn't have to remove it and the call only takes a speed dial moment. Normally he'd go through Gibbs, but this time /Director Shepherd/ sounds in his cowl covered ear.

On a Saturday, he has no idea where she is, but if anyone knows what's happening: "Director, Tim McGee at the Hotel Meritz."

/What's the matter, Agent McGee/ he can hear the grin in her teasing tone, /miss work already?/

"No, it seems determined to follow me wherever I go. Director, is the Office of Special Projects running an Operation in DC?"

All the humor is gone from her voice. /No they are not./

"I just ran into Special Agent Nell Jones, and from her reaction I think I was a threat to her Cover."

/Henrietta Lange would tell me before sending anyone cross-country. I'll get back to you, Agent McGee. Until then, do not engage./

"I won't." The call dies as quickly as though he were talking to Gibbs.

xx

Jennifer Shepherd had been looking forward to a quiet Saturday afternoon catching up on paperwork since no one knows she's in the building. Her teams are occupied on many cases but for the moment her office is quiet but, as Special Agent McGee has just pointed out, the job follows you.

She punches in the California OSP SAIC's special number. It's mid-morning there, three hours behind, but this special access number follows the woman to wherever she is. The ring cuts three-quarters through the first. /Hello?/

Henrietta Lange sounds tense.

"Hetty, Jen." No sense coming off too official until she knows if the Analyst is on Assignment or Vacation. She keeps her tone light. "Are you running an Op in my back yard?"

/What do you mean?/ Cautious, almost suspicious and certainly guarded.

"One of my people just ran into one of yours, Nell Jones, here in DC."

/Thank _God_./ The vast relief in the small SAIC's tone raises the hair on the back of Jennifer's neck. /Is she safe?/

"Seems to be." She won't ask 'safe from what?' Hetty is too skilled an Agent to need prompting.

x

/Miss Jones is indeed on an assignment, one uniquely suited to the abilities, but we lost track of her two days ago and have been unable to establish a trace./ Jennifer hears the sound of other extensions being picked up. She knows Hetty won't permit interruptions, though no one would cut in without explicit direction of the SAIC. If her tone is any indication, Jones has a lot of agents concerned about her fate. She also knows the skills of the people out there; if they've gone for 48 hours without being able to find one of their own, they're tense.

"She's here in DC. One of my best agents is on site but I've ordered him not to engage."

/Director, it is imperative that her cover _not _be compromised. She is operating under the alias 'Betty Willoughby' but if she is on the East Coast it is certain that it is not of her own will./

No one needs the rest of it. Jones can't check in with her Command, and that means she's being watched.

Shepherd met the young woman a few months ago when she first approved her Appointment. She'd gone to LA as part of her normal routine to meet key personnel under her command face-to-face. The Analyst seemed competent in her duties but Hetty Lange has at her disposal three Field Agents and an LAPD Detective as Police Liaison plus a full contingent of support personnel. For her to select an Intelligence Analyst for a Field Operation makes Jones' position unique and the circumstances extraordinary.

"Tell me her assignment," she commands.

/Grekor Kanyicska./

x

Shepherd bites a curse. If ever a name were familiar to her it is this major competitor of La Grenouille. The two Arms Dealers have, two years ago, escalated their competition into a war and, while there is no shooting between them yet, their competition for the largest, wealthiest and most demanding clients has grown and with it the death count among innocent victims and American military.

Rene Benoit and Grekor Kanyicska seem determined to become the Macy and Gimbel of the 21st Century weapons market, primarily by permanently removing their competition and, like that long War of the Superstores, there will be only one victor.

Much as she'd prefer to see Benoit buried by the competition, Kanyicska is no better an adversary when lives are the coin to be paid.

x

"Why is Nell Jones taking point?" She won't ask 'and how could you lose her?' She knows Lange would have the woman ringed three deep with backup if she could.

/We're known to him or his people, and Miss Jones has certain qualifications that allowed her to infiltrate his organization. That was ten days ago and we've since learned that the initial chatter that prompted this operation is now that Kanyicska is preparing a major purchase, but before Miss Jones could report anything further we lost contact. An excellent decoy misled our surveillance team and by the time the ruse was discovered the _real_ Kanyicska and his people - including Miss Jones - were gone. That was, as I said, two days ago and our best efforts to monitor all exits from the city, including by air, have been fruitless. We do know from her last report, incomplete though it is, that whatever he is going to buy is valued by him at twenty five million dollars. The fact that she is in Washington indicates the sale is pending./

"I agree."

/But what he is going to buy, and to whom among his clients he will sell it, we still have no idea./

"The who I can't help you with, but as to the what, how does twenty five pounds of weapon's grade uranium sound?"

/Bugger./ Muffled sounds in the background make the consensus clear. /Where is Miss Jones?/

"She's at the Hotel Meritz and my agent gave no indication she's been harmed."

/Inform him, if you please Director, whom he faces. We presently cannot confirm how many men or women Kanyicska has at his disposal, but as you are aware they have never been hesitant to kill to protect their interests./

"I'll put together everything I have and have it to you within the hour."

/The same. Good morning, Director./

There's too much irony in that parting.

x

Shepherd hits her 'contact' button, has to wait only two rings. /McGee./

She brings him up to date, ending with: "I don't want to put agents into the scene yet, not until we have more Intel. Ideally I would see everyone connected with this case netted but you're going to have to be point man. I'll have a picture of Kanyicska sent to you, but it is important that he not recognize you. Is that feasible?"

**snort** /Believe me, director, it's feasible./

"Did I say something funny, Agent McGee?"

/No, ma'am. And don't worry about the picture, I can access NCIS Secret files on my smart phone./

"You're a dangerous man, Agent McGee."

/Thanks, director./

He needn't sound so grateful; she hadn't meant it as a compliment. Well, not wholly. "Keep clear of Special Agent Jones."

/Done./


	8. The Kanyicska Gambit

Chapter Eight  
The Kanyicska Gambit

Shepherd didn't want to have to call Gibbs and his team in from the four winds on a Saturday early afternoon, but she hadn't wanted to come in to her office today either. Nevertheless, thirty minutes after speaking to the Office of Special Projects' SAIC she steps down into the Operations Division on her way to the elevator to discover that Gibbs, for whatever reason, had already called in his team on their day off. She'd anticipated it would take the men and women about an hour to assemble; she hadn't even asked Gibbs his own location when she'd called his cell and he, typically, hadn't volunteered the information.

It's very quiet when she enters the enclave, never a good sign for a team that thrives on banter the way Abby Sciuto thrives on 'Caf-Pow!'

"What have you got?" she asks generally.

"A major case of penis envy," Ziva declares and Jennifer nearly falls in her astonished left turn. She caught a glimpse at Gibbs' expression and he's no less surprised by the woman's pronouncement.

"_What _did you say?"

"Pens envy," DiNozzo corrects.

"Yes, sorry, pens."

"Grekor Kanyicska seems to have the most compartmentalized operation of any terrorist or Arms Dealer I've ever heard," DiNozzo explains. "Captured operatives not only claim to know nothing about his operation, they literally do know nothing."

"If anyone does know something," Ziva picks up after the recovery, "it is certain that person is a major figure in the operation, and thus far Interpol, CIA, no one is close enough to identify, let alone capture, one of them. Bodies do not talk, except perhaps to Ducky, but there is no way we have found to link any dead bodies to the upper echelons of his organization."

"What do you have?" She's most interested in what she doesn't already know but that information is meager at best.

Grekor Kanyicska has made a profession of staying under the radar, being almost as successful as La Grenouille. But if he is on the move in Washington, then the product is deadly, the price is high and will be paid in blood.

"All right," she says to Ziva, "put aside your pens envy and bring us up to date."

x

"Kanyicska has his headquarters in Sacramento, California where he is surrounded by a retinue, estimates have them in the 300 range, but no one has ever gotten close to him. He lives like a king in his enclave, almost self-sufficient. He has a secondary headquarters in Los Angeles, which is apparently where he linked with Special Agent Jones. Flight records indicate his private jet flew into California three weeks ago."

"How did he leave Los Angeles undetected?"

"The old switcheroo," DiNozzo reports from behind her. She turns, immediately changing her mind about reprimanding him over such a term as 'switcheroo'. That's not important.

"It was actually fairly impressive. His people, under cover of darkness, actually managed to switch transponders with a Lockheed jet parked nearby. Said jet then made a departure for Kansas. By the time the deception was realized after the Lockheed was in Kansas air space, Kanyicska's plain flying the fake Lockheed signal left LA and then the transponder was switched _off _before it was inside the next zone."

"It then ascended so high that Air Traffic Control stations between California and the East coast basically ignored it," Ziva continues. "Without a transponder signal it never appeared on their screens."

"But the really impressive thing," DiNozzo picks back up, "is how a plane matching Kanyicska's Gulfstream but _not _his signal landed in Reagan that day. As it's also a private jet, once it was down the ATCs moved on to the next incoming plane."

"We actually only _think _it's Kanyicska's," Michelle Palmer cuts in, "because it's the only one of that class to land in Washington on that day. I'm working on filing for a warrant to investigate the plane but, lacking probable cause - pretty much lacking _any _legal reason - I'm going to have to search hard for a judge who'll grant it."

"Forget it. Do something else." Even if they could board a plane which according to the records isn't Kanyicska's, the interior would be innocuous. "Compile information on Special Agent Jones, does she have the skills to pull off this undercover operation?" Lange wouldn't use her if she weren't sure Jones could handle it, but she wants more assurance before deciding if she'll send a team into the hotel as backup.

"Agent DiNozzo, tell us more about Kanyicska."

"His deals are in everything from drugs to weapons, unlike our favorite Frog, and apparently very few people actually meet him. Photos are few and far between."

"No one ever enters his enclave in California," Ziva says, "except for the most trusted personnel."

"Now he's out of his Fortress of Solitude," DiNozzo concludes. "But what brought him?"

"An excellent question." She knows he means more than the words spoken. "Why would he leave his sanctuary to deal with a buy personally? That's more La Grenouille's technique."

"Twenty five pounds of Uranium is a good incentive. He could probably sell that much in the Middle East for, what, a hundred million?"

"I expect you're right, Agent DiNozzo, but I do not like this." Shepherd opens her cell phone, a brief speed dial connection and "Special Agent Arnell, I want you and your team up in MTAC immediately. Bring everything you have on Special Agent Drakis' murder." When she presses the disconnect button her glance to Gibbs needs no elucidation, they know one another too well. He makes his own call to the Hotel Meritz while she connects with Supervisory Special Agent Higgins.

xx

Fortunately, over the past several weeks, teams of agents have labored at the Herculean task of rebuilding Drakis' home within a vast hanger in Andrews Air Force Base and this work is almost complete.

Like a huge three dimensional jigsaw puzzle the pieces, many of which are nearly burnt out, come together as a whole. And it is then, with the pieces reassembled, that the significance of particular sections have become clear.

Gibbs and his team have no need to go to the site, the information comes to them through SSA Rosa Arnell and her team in MTAC, where Director Shepherd has called all available teams together for a caucus. The room is crowded with every Field Agent who can fill the huge room on short notice.

x

"Abi Hassim Khodadadi," Arnell calls everyone's attention the instant the second ramp door closes for the final time to the image of a man swathed head to foot in desert color warrior gear, his face obscured by a protective cloth, "is head of a Jihadist cult whose name translates to 'Black Death'. He's believed to follow a radical path that advocates the annihilation of all who are not Taliban. After 9/11, the Black Death denounced Bin Laden and all his followers for their shortsightedness. They believed that every major city in the world should have been destroyed and that death tolls should never have been below four billion.

"For some reason, even the Taliban seems unwilling to get behind this program." No one reacts to this and she puts it aside. "Actually, Khodadadi's power base seems quite small and his influence among the ruling Jihadists is limited. We believe this is because he is, in the terminology of the Psychiatric profession, a raving loon." Normally such a denouement might be met with a wry smile but

"Unfortunately, he's a raving loon with a following, and he's disappeared from the region. My contacts in the Sudan suspect he's here, and if he is we believe him to have twenty five pounds of processed uranium.

"The Sudan has the third largest supply of the world's uranium, but it's incredibly unlikely that a group with the Black Death's resources could manage to arrange the processing, which is most likely to be done in a place like Iran. But steal already existent uranium, that they have the resources for."

Shepherd says "The Office of Special Projects has determined the value of Kanyicska's latest acquisition at $25 million."

No one is surprised. While twenty five million dollars is a staggering sum, the Black Death is unlikely to have the resources to convert the uranium into a bomb, but Kanyicska would certainly have clients who would pay about a hundred or more and could handle the bombs.

x

The screen behind Arnell changes to a suited man. "Frederick McAllister. His prints were found in Drakis' kitchen," Arnell continues, "once it was put back together. The portion that gave us the prints was found in a neighbor's basement, believe it or not. It seems it flew through an open cellar door that faced Drakis' home, an incredibly lucky break I would never have put money on.

"Our latest Intel has McAllister on the East Coast. Over the years he's made a specialty of explosives of particularly devastating yield.

"Abi Khodadadi had dropped out of sight from the Middle East about two days prior to Special Agent Drakis' murder, and we suspect he's behind the theft, so he might have used McAllister to pave the way as a distraction."

"Can we confirm this?" Shepherd asks.

"We _suspect _but can't prove. We have no confirmed image of Khodadadi for a BOLO, we have nothing to give Metro or anyone else. Twenty five pounds is enough to pull Kanyicska out of his enclave," Arnell concludes. "If he's at the Hotel Meritz, he probably feels pretty comfortable that he can meet with Khodadadi and his people to complete the deal."

Susan Bourne leans forward to inquire "Is there still no information from the detection network?"

Director Shepherd fields that question. "The Washington grid has detected nothing, which means either the uranium is well shielded or it's not in Washington. We're proceeding from both these premises, but that the uranium may well be moved into Washington at a time of the Jihadists' choosing or a representative sample may be here and the bulk will change hands elsewhere. All other major cities are on high alert as well."

x

"Director Shepherd," one of the technicians at the control panel at the room's left wall calls, "I have Special Agent McGee on Channel A."

"Open Channel A."

But while Tim McGee's mouth, cheeks and chin appear on the huge screen, the rest of his face is obscured under a blue half mask with a large white A on his forehead and white wings set above his ears. Shepherd now understands McGee's aborted chortle earlier when she'd asked if Kanyicska's not recognizing him was feasable. She'd walk right past him at that Convention.

"Lose the mask, McGee," Gibbs commands.

He brushes it back and off, though what it's done to his hair makes Shepherd wish he'd left it in place.

"Sorry, boss, I forgot I was wearing it."

"You should put it back on," DiNozzo advises. "You look like an artillery test range."

A woman's laugh in the background makes McGee turn even as he brushes the unruly locks back with his hand and for a moment the agents see a red faced woman clad in a very affectionate green and black costume standing back by the large window.

"Reverend McGee, you're blushing," DiNozzo observes with a grin.

Tim's face returns to fill most of the screen, but his hair isn't much improved. "Never mind, Tony," he directs in a tone that reminds them he hasn't fully forgiven his partner for the 'pregnancy' debacle. "You wanted me to report, Director?"

"What's the situation out there?"

"Per your order, we've kept clear of Special Agent Jones. We've seen her two more times, but that's all."

"Nothing unusual to report?"

"I didn't say that. People are getting sick."

"It's a Sci-Fi / Comic Book Convention," DiNozzo points out. "That's enough to sicken anyone."

"No, Tony, I mean it. I've been to twenty Conventions since 1980 and this is the first time I've seen or heard of three people being taken out by Ambulance at three different times."

x

"What are their symptoms?" Shepherd asks, her firm tone regaining control of the conversation.

"Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain. Three out of 5,000 isn't really a lot, but it's more than I've known in the past."

"Keep on top of it. If another case comes up, let us know. Meantime, we need information from Jones on Kanyicska. Call when you're ready to make contact, try to get her information. I'm going to bring OSP in on a Conference call."

Siobhan comes up beside Tim and he moves enough aside so that the agents can see her red face. "I should do it," she offers. "Timmy's already been seen with her, and I don't send out 'agent vibes'.

"No matter how it's done," Shepherd counters, unwilling to comment on what 'vibes' the scarlet faced woman would send, "the contact must be brief and within character. Every second you are together increases the risk of exposure. Call me when you have a plan." The McGees exchange an uncomfortable glance. "What's the problem?"

"Well, Director," Siobhan as Katma Tui replies, not meeting any of their eyes, "exposure is something of a problem for Agent Jones as it is."

xxx

"Abby," Gibbs says by way of announcement as he crosses her threshold. Immediately he feels he's walked into a wall composed of wild drums and more erratic thunderclaps. He turns the noise emanating from the white radio on the shelf by the door off but for the first time in weeks that elicits nothing but a "Thank you, Gibbs."

The woman holds two beakers at her table, and pours the green contents of one into the pink contents of the other, making a mixture he considers unappealing but which he's fairly confident won't explode. "What are you doing?"

"Hi, Gibbs, you're just in time," she declares, not looking away from her careful transfer which steadily darkens the mixture. When it's satisfactory, she sets the green liquid container down and holds the other out to him. "What do you think?

"Is it a cure for some disease?"

"No."

"Then I don't like it."

Before he can stop her, she drinks half the concoction and instantly turns away, gagging violently. He hurries to her, shocked and more upset that he has no idea what to do to help her. But before he can do more than grab her shoulders to steady her she straightens, a look of horrid disgust contorting her face.

"_Blechk_. That is so _bad_."

He's not sure if he should be relieved she's alive or whack her. "Abby, what are you doing?"

"Failing for the umpteenth time. I simply cannot break it, and for a Forensic Scientist of my caliber that is an unendurable challenge"

"Break _what_?"

"First they change the formula, then they add nutmeg to it every Christmas, then they take out the caffeine – how insane is that – and now they've raised the price of 'Caf-Pow!' by eight percent. I've had it, Gibbs, I decided to make my own, but even with Major Mass Spec I still can't break the formula properly. There's something missing, something even Major Mass Spec can't break. Do you suppose they got to him, bribed him to stop me? I have everything but the taste."

That head smack is coming closer. "Stop it."

"Gibbs, how can you say that? They're holding me hostage by the taste buds."

He gives her his hardest eyes, his pointing finger almost touching her nose and she must look over the barrel. "Stop it."

"You know, ever since you shaved your moustache you're no fun."

"You used to be the happiest person in NCIS."

"Well, I had a morning routine that kept me going, but sometimes with Sammy around I can't always do it."

"What was that?" If he can do anything to get the old Abby back, he'll move mountains.

"Every morning, bright and early, I'd have guys over on a rotating schedule and we'd have volcanic, insane, break-the-furniture sex, and you know my coffin's stronger than any bed because it has to last for centuries but since _some_ of them aren't into three-ways–"

His finger again almost to the tip of her nose quiets her.

x

"I need you to break into hospital records."

"Isn't that illegal?" He shifts his glare up a notch and she crosses the room to her computer on the freestanding console, again with that irrepressible, half-aggravating smile. "Which hospital?"

"I don't know."

This earns a half second's hesitation but she rallies. "All right. Patient's name?"

"I don't know."

She glances at him, then returns her attention to the computer. "Trickier. What sex?"

"Don't know." She turns back. "There're only two, take your pick."

She turns on him. "_Gibbs_."

"In the past few hours three people were taken from the Hotel Maritz complaining of nausea, vomiting..." He doesn't like the distress that lights her face. "Not McGee - either one. But three people in one day is more of a coincidence than I like."

She resumes her typing. "When have you ever liked coincidence?"

No point in answering that.

"Okay, 911 has three calls from that address, ambulances dispatched. I'll have to pull the records and get everything to you."

"By 1700."

He walks away and she checks the clock on the far wall. Three minutes of.

"_Gibbs_."

xxx

"DiNozzo," Gibbs calls across the bullpen over a half hour later to his Senior Field Agent, who has the sense to sharply curtail his yawn. It's barely going up to 1800. Abby's report on the three patients is inconclusive, tests being run, and he hates inconclusive when he's paying overtime on day 6. "How does someone hide twenty five pounds of uranium from our grid?"

"By not having it in Washington." A look into Gibbs' eyes is enough to make clear how bad an idea levity is. This is something they'd determined hours ago during the briefing in MTAC. "Well, you can block it byyyyyyy..." he types as quickly as he can but Ziva cuts in with

"Either four inches thickness of lead, ten inches of steel, twenty four inches of concrete or seventy two inches of water. Each tenth thickness reduces the radiation penetration by a sufficient amount that the remaining dosage is approximately 1/1,000 that of the unshielded intensity. This is sufficient to render the radioactivity too low for detection when sensors are at broad scan, though a concentrated scan will still pick it up. In other words, we could find it if we knew where it was."

"DiNozzo, before she beats you to it," Gibbs says while Tony gives the woman an annoyed glare and gets a wrinkled nose look in return, "track sales of lead in DC, Maryland and Virginia."

"That she can jump in on."

They recognize the likelihood of this being a wild goose chase; anyone can buy lead in quantity, but they have to start somewhere.

x

"There are nine detection trucks on the road," Michelle Palmer reports. "They're scanning the city in a grid, but they can make no significant speed."

"How much ground have they covered?"

"Last report I have from my FBI contact, less than one quarter of the city."

"Contact?" DiNozzo asks. "_You_ have an FBI contact?"

"_Yes_, _I_ have an FBI contact," she catches Gibbs' look from her right, "which really isn't particularly important at the moment. _However_, he says they have to work slowly because of the possibility that the perps may know their grid and double back, meaning they have to double back."

"Efficient," Gibbs says, his tone making it clear how little credit he grants. "Divert those damned trucks to the area of the Hotel Meritz."

"Sir, I can get the information, my contact will give me that, but I cannot divert–" she meets his eyes and visibly fights not to cringe. "I can't–"

"You have twenty minutes."

She's going to learn 'can't' is not an answer; she's to extend herself until 'can't' ceases to exist if she wants to make it in NCIS - at least his NCIS.

x

The answer comes in three. "Sir, the area of the hotel has already been scanned. It's negative."

'Then what the hell is Kanyicska doing there?' The uranium isn't there. Have they come to the wrong conclusion? Rule 51 reads 'Sometimes you're wrong' but are they - all of NCIS collectively - this wrong?

But before he can say more, his Intercom rings and he answers with his usual brevity. The call doesn't last long.

"MTAC," he commands when he hangs up. "McGee's about to make contact with Jones and OSP's standing by."

xx

In the makeshift café that takes up a quarter of the fourth floor northeast Ballroom floors Katma Tui sits not far in from the roped entrance, no food but her laptop on the table before her. She's been waiting and pretending to use the machine until she sees 'Slave Leia' enter for dinner. The petite woman is alone and she prays fervently; this will work only because God wills it and protects and aids the good.

As 'Leia' passes through the corded entrance on her way to the serving area, Siobhan pounds both fists hard on the table with a near shriek of rage, begins a slamming tantrum sure to attract attention of everyone in the dining area. "Dúr píosa damanta na teicneolaíochta ríomhaireachta ní féidir _aon ní_ a dhéanamh!" she blasts the black device in piercing Gaelic. "Ba mhaith liom caith amach an fhuinneog! _Truflais olc_! _All_ I want is for the Internet to work _right_."

As she'd hoped, her outburst attracts Leia's - and everybody else's - attention, and she tries to project an image of helpless - but not dangerous - need, for if she's overdone it she'll drive the woman away. She concentrates on plaintive and God aids her, for to her prayers He ignites the woman's natural inclinations. She also offers a quick prayer of thanks that she's possibly the only one here who knows what she'd said. George Donaldson's hair might turn white if he'd heard her say it in English, though it had felt good to let a month's frustration out in three breaths.

"May I help you?" Nell asks tentatively.

x

Siobhan forces relief from her face. She'd never doubted God would incline Jones to help, but she has to play the frustrated neo or step out of her hastily conceived character. "Dúr Internet!" she grouses, her fist clenched threateningly to the screen. "I'm _trying_ to video chat my sister and it keeps saying 'Invalid _f^king_ parameter'."

She sees in the woman's tightly contained smile the Nell's sure that's not the message. "Want me to look at it?"

"_Please_. I've been twenty minutes and can't get _anywhere_. I'll pay you."

"That's not necessary," Leia/Nell assures her, pulls another chair around to sit beside Green Lantern, moving the oddly shaped gold metal plate at her abdomen so it doesn't press into her as Siobhan shifts her chair aside to make room. With a few finger movements on the square touch panel and thumb clicks Jones pulls up a diagnostic.

x

The flaw Timmy set is a simple one which might flummox a novice but which an expert can resolve in seconds. However, when she does, Nell unwittingly activates a sub-routine that opens three windows, two on the upper half of the screen, one stretching the length of the bottom half.

"_Keep working on it_," Siobhan whispers to the surprised woman when Jones sees her own Operations Center across the bottom of the screen with Henrietta Lang, Eric Beale, G. Callen and his team of three while upper left is the Captain America she'd seen earlier and realized with near panic to be Timothy McGee, evidently now in a upper room. Washington's MTAC - with numerous men and women including NCIS Director Jennifer Shepherd - is in the upper right of the screen.

"We do not have much time," Hetty Lange says, her voice low with the system's reduced volume.

x

Nell tilts the screen upward until she's sure only hers and Green Lantern's - whoever she is - faces are visible to the camera. On her face is the deepest relief Siobhan can ever recall seeing but it's pushed deep a second later.

"Grekor Kanyicska brought me into DC on a private jet," she whispers. "I wasn't able to bring anything with me, the cameras and all the other equipment is still in California."

"We know," Hetty tells her.

"We're at the Hotel Meritz, he's meeting with sellers but I don't know when. I only heard one conversation when they thought I was asleep in the suite's master bedroom. I can confirm he's here to buy processed uranium and Kanyicska wants it very badly, he's already got a buyer lined up. He's asking 70 million dollars. He's holed up in our room, never comes out unless it's in costume; Darth Vader. He never talks business in front of me but I have had chances to search the room. I found a flash drive and can't get access to the computer without giving myself away, so I left it where it was.

"I can come and go freely but I know I'm watched. There are so many costumes here, so many masks, that I never know by whom or when. That's why he likes this place and time, he only leaves the room as Darth Vader, but I've seen three Darth Vaders that might or might _not_ be him or some member of his posse."

"Are you in any danger?"

"I'm pretty sure my cover's still secure," she whispers. "I'm still believed to be an exotic dancer coaxed away from her job to entertain a really rich playboy for a weekend. He likes them sexy and ditzy, just as you said, so as long as my head's empty it won't get blown off." She gives Siobhan a glance. Green Lantern returns a 'same song, different dance' look.

"There are two other men who share the suite but no one ever talks business when I'm there. That's one reason they like me to spend time down here. I can't leave the hotel, they made certain of that by … well, they made sure I can't go out."

"Is that all?" Hetty asks. She doesn't try to hide her disappointment at this meager report.

"No." Nell blanks out Shepherd and MTAC as well as McGee upstairs, her own Operations center fills the screen. "This is between Hetty and me," she says. At a glance from Lange, Callen, Hanna, Blye, Beale and Deeks file out of the room.

Eric Beale had been closest to the door but he's the last one to leave. Eyes locked on Nell, he doesn't depart until a hard look from Lange drives him out.

x

"What is it, Miss Jones?"

"I know I _agreed _to this undercover because Kanyicska has a thing for redheads and any agent would be recognized, but my issue is the _thing _he has for redheads."

She tilts the screen forward until the camera picks up quite enough of her chest to display on the huge California screen. The slave bra is brutally generous. Though the bra does have some material, Carrie Fisher had had much more. "You saw Star Wars?"

"I did indeed, Miss Jones." Nothing need be said about what the screen doesn't show.

"I've had to _put myself out _far and above the call of duty."

Neither Hetty nor Siobhan need elaboration.

"You may rest assured, Miss Jones, that NCIS will be most generous in its recompense."

"Don't ask me to do it again."

"Agreed." Hetty looks to Siobhan. "I'm not sure who you are under that red face paint, but thank you for your help."

"Siobhan McGee. Perhaps you know my husband Tim."

"Oh, of course. Well, Special Agent McGee, thank you."

"I'll be here through Monday but I'll keep a low profile."

"Most wise." They can see on Lange's face her consideration of whether a red faced Green Lantern is low profile. "Miss Jones will tell you of those we contend with." She breaks the signal and Nell closes out the circuit.

x

"There," Nell says to Siobhan, returning to normal volume and her persona of a helpful passer-by, "it should work fine now."

"Thank you," Siobhan gushes, also returning to character. It had been fun; she doesn't get opportunities for infantile tantrums.

Jones looks around, no one in normal earshot is in costume but in a setting like this one can't hope that the high tech equipment people carry, 98 percent of it bought here or at other Conventions, is fake. She drops her voice as low as she can. "I'd better go. What room are you in?"

"2212."

"I'm in 1436. I'll leave you a message, set a time when we can meet. It's a relief having two agents here."

"Oh, I'm not an agent, my husband is."

Jones blinks, apprehensive and unsure if she should be. "But I thought you were with NCIS too."

"Oh, I am. At least part-time. But I'm not an Agent."

"What are you then?"

"I'm the Chaplain."

Surprise transmutes back into relief. "I may need that more."

She's gone in seconds, her purple bands trailing behind her.


	9. Please Help

Chapter Nine  
Please Help

"All right," Gibbs bites as his team moves into 1830 on their Saturday off, "Grekor Kanyicska is here to buy the uranium and move al Qaeda up the nuclear threat scale. The uranium may not be at the hotel yet, but that's where the deal's going down. DiNozzo, contact Homeland, make sure they're on top of that. Warn them that if they move too soon, the uranium might not be there but also that if they do break in there are three NCIS people I don't want caught in the crossfire."

"Uranium's for sale," DiNozzo points out. "Seller needs a buyer. We should find out who that is."

"Ziva, you're on that."

"Kanyicska is at the Hotel Meritz," Ziva says, "but the Detector trucks indicate the uranium is not."

"Then it must be close enough to be brought in when the sale is to be made," Michelle says.

"If I were paying millions of dollars," Ziva says, "I would want the uranium on hand and ready to pick up. I wonder why the delay."

"Problem, we don't have a reliable description on Khodadadi, and we've nothing on his people. With thousands of masks at that place he could even be another Darth Vader," DiNozzo says.

"That's why Kanyicska picked a Comic Book convention, or did Khodadadi pick it?"

DiNozzo's answer is "Does it matter?"

"No," Gibbs decides.

"If the deal's being brokered at the Meritz, are Khodadadi and his people looking to hide in plain sight?"

"What has me –" Palmer stops almost convulsively.

"Well?" Gibbs has no time for the woman's second guessing herself or her instincts.

"Sorry, sir, but what has me worried is the threat al Qaeda made through Al Jazeera, that they're going to punish the US for our decadence."

"Nothing's more decadent than a comic book convention," DiNozzo points out.

"And the attack on the World Trade Center," Ziva cuts in, "killed 2,749, but many times that number are registered to crowd together in that hotel for the four day convention. Granted they will not all fit at once. Just as last year there are people registered for one day, two day and three or four day tickets, but if they could build a bomb it would wipe out many times more people than 9/11 did."

"While McGiggle snagged himself and the Missus a four day bash, making them among the prime targets."

"DiNozzo, I want you to get a radiation detector into McGee's hands asap. When the uranium is moved into that hotel, I want to hit it with everything we've got."

xxx

Tim and Siobhan, winding down after a mutual shower followed by dinner at the same outside restaurant where they breakfasted, have little desire to return downstairs this evening for more of the Convention.

They've seen the Dealers' Rooms and bought little. Only the Comics of the 60's through 80's hold any real nostalgic or familiar appeal, the rooms selling memorabilia are quieter than the continual buzz of noise but after a while even curiosities, despite the quality of the reproductions of the allure of true originals lose their novel appeal.

The Action Set they'd seen earlier had a counter bid of the $550 and the first bidder answered with $750, which they consider either impressive or crazy for unboxed pose-able superheroes.

There are only a few more panels scheduled for tonight and films will run until 0300, but on the whole a near full day of, as Siobhan had said, 'fandom and Enkiss', they have no plans to venture from the room.

For now, out of costume, they just want to rest. Tim lies upon the bed, a bag full of assorted magazines at his side while reading a back issue of 'Femme Fatales' - which he's assured his wife he's only interested in the articles within. Siobhan sits half dozing in a very comfortable chair pulled close to the window, relaxing with the 22nd floor view of Washington shrouded in darkness and highlighted with pinpoints of light.

It's been a full day and a half and neither is thrilled that NCIS and world terrorism have intruded on what should have been a few very short days forgetting about the wor–

A soft knock at the door is barely heard and draws their gazes to each other. "Gibbs doesn't knock," Tim points out, "he kicks the door down."

"Very funny." She pushes herself out of the deeply cushioned chair, pulls and ties her green robe into place. There are very few who know their room number, she limits that list to only one potential caller. "Put your pants on," she says as she crosses the room. He quickly jumps off the bed, pulls open a drawer under the television and grabs a pair of pants, yanks them on.

Siobhan waits until he's secure, then opens the door. She's she'd expected their visitor, but is surprised by her attire.

x

NCIS Intelligence Analyst Nell Jones is still not quite clad as the enslaved Princess Leia from Star Wars Chapter 6. The barefooted woman's total costume is a metal enhanced slave bra and two long purple strips of cloth that reach, in front and back, from waist to ankles but which don't meet at her hips on either side of a metal piece that's too high to protect anything at all on the woman. The balance of this outrageous costume is a loose iron slave collar with large ring through which to attach a chain or leash.

"Please, can I come in? Before someone sees me?"

"Of course." Siobhan closes the door behind her.

"I'm sorry, I don't want to intrude but…."

"You're not intruding."

Nell looks to Tim, then away. "Please don't look at me."

"Mind your manners, Timmy," Siobhan says without heat.

"I'm sorry," he says, but with that honest fluster of his that says he really wasn't staring at the petite, almost nude woman.

Siobhan goes to the closet, slides the mirrored door aside and pulls from a hanger Tim's long blue robe. He's six one to Nell's five so when she pulls on the garment it covers her feet.

x

"They don't let me wear anything else whether I'm outside the suite or in," she says, still not looking at them. All they see now of the outrageous costume is the iron slave collar. "I got away because they're playing cards, the three of them, so for the minute they're ignoring me." The lovely woman's tone makes it clear how much she relishes being ignored. "They think I'm downstairs in the Convention; I told them I wanted to watch a movie." She looks about, anything to keep her from meeting either of their eyes, but finally manages to force herself to look. "Mrs. McGee,"

"Siobhan."

"Siobhan. You said you're NCIS' Chaplain? Does that mean you're a...?"

"A Priest? Yes."

"I'll leave you two alone," Tim says.

"I'm sorry, I don't mean to put you out. Just... I don't have anywhere else to turn."

"You're not putting me out," he says, gathering his wallet and Convention ID. "I think I'll see a movie." He looks to the women. "Or two."

"Tim, I'm really sorry about hurting you earlier, and sorry I couldn't apologize before. Hettie was right, there wasn't any time."

"No problem. And you didn't hurt me."

Siobhan can see the lie and hopes Nell can't. "I'll call when we're done."

He kisses her goodbye. "I'll see you later."

When he's gone Siobhan pushes away from the window the chair she'd been sitting in while looking out at the Washington vista, they push the round table and two smaller chairs to where they'd been beside the window. At night it's peaceful out there in the near darkness, almost like fake stars under the real ones, but there's nothing peaceful in the visitor.

x

"I'm not a Field Agent," Nell begins, her tone tense as they sit opposite one another, Nell with the window to her right. "I work in Ops. I'm an Intelligence Analyst, I work with computers."

She forces a smile but Siobhan has recognized that tears come as hard for this woman as they do for herself, while her smile is an evasive mask her eyes can't take on.

"I _volunteered_ for this mission because no one else could do it," she says, looking everywhere but into Siobhan's eyes. "But if I'd known what it involved - what it was going to be like - I should've said no."

"Then you were stuck."

She nods, looks to the room spread to her left, to the darkened window at her right, anywhere she can to avoid meeting Siobhan's eyes.

"Grekor Kanyicska..." She visibly tries to put that name behind her. "Some men just have a thing for redheads."

Siobhan grins. "Tell me about it."

The tone brings Nell's attention back to her, her eyes widen and she sighs sharply. "Observant much? I didn't even look. Green Lantern was a wig." Siobhan only nods. "What _good _am I doing here if I can't even see the wig before my eyes?"

"What are you seeing?"

x

She sighs and seems to wilt into the voluminous blue robe. "'Betty Willoughby' is a stripper, an Exotic Dancer. Eric and I - Eric Beale - we put together a persona Kanyicska would be drawn to but I am _not _a stripper! And yet for two days now I've had to walk around this convention _naked_."

"That's not all you've had to do," Siobhan gently urges. Nell tries to meet her eyes, can't; finally reduced to shaking her head shamefully.

"No," she whispers to the table. "Kanyicska doesn't like women with morals, so Betty Willoughby was constructed with none, but I didn't realize how _bad _it would be."

"Do you want to pull out?"

"_Yes_." She'd met Siobhan's eyes for that passionate moment, but now can only say to the wall beside her "But I can't."

"I have the Director's ear."

"No, I mean I can't. Too much has gone into this. We can't put another agent in. It's me or no one, and we have to know when Kanyicska's going to make the deal for the uranium."

x

Siobhan won't tell her that one of the things she's always considered to be her greatest strength, her greatest source of usefulness as Enkiss' Chaplain, is that she cares more for the people in her charge than for the jobs they have to do. They may be essential, they may be vital, they may be earth-shaking but she would go toe-to-toe against Satan himself - or Jethro - to fight for the men and women in her charge.

If this woman asked her she would ring up Jennifer Shepherd right this minute and she wouldn't stop talking until this woman was free of her horrid torment.

But this time she stymied, and it galls her to admit it but Jones is right; it's her or no one. She's the lynchpin, the one upon whom every facet of this operation depends. Horrific as it is, and she would wish this fate, this abuse, on no person, Nell Jones must endure this humiliation until she can accomplish her mission.

x

"You've heard nothing more?"

"No," she says to the wall beside her. "That's where - why - how I'm ..." she tells the table top. "Blast it, they call it 'pillow talk' out there," she says to the robe, "but that's a _fantasy_,"

She forces herself to meet Siobhan's eyes. "There _is _no pillow talk, there's me being a 'ditzy blonde' redhead trying to worm information without making it seem like I'm worming anything while I'm wandering around like a Vegas showgirl slash hooker and getting _touched by every perv in the place and having to put out for those slimy_..."

She turns away to the wall. "I hate them," she raises her fist to the wall but forces herself to hold back. Siobhan wishes she'd hit it. "I _hate _them. I never thought I could hate anyone but I hate _them_."

Anger gives her the strength to face her confidant, to say to her face: "Reverend, you simply can't _imagine _what it's like to be a prisoner and have to walk around naked and have men take you whenever they feel like it and you have to give in. You can't _imagine _what that's _like_."

x

Siobhan leans in close until Nell can't look away from her eyes. "I knowwhat it's like."

"You _don't_."

But she keeps the contact until sees the change in the young agent's eyes. "The day Timmy proposed to me, January first, just six months ago, I was kidnapped. I was beaten and tortured." Nell's eyes go from angry to distressed, but Siobhan has more the woman needs to hear if she's going to establish credibility with her. "That man tortured and murdered three women in my Congregation before he started on me. He stripped me naked and held me prisoner in a dungeon for three days. I was beaten more times than I could count, I was tortured, raped, sodomized…." The distress mounts to horror.

"My God," is all Nell can breathe.

"I was raped eleventimes." Nell pulls back, the chair won't let her get far enough away. "I know what it's like."

"Oh my _God_. I'm _sorry_."

"I didn't admit this to play one-upsmanship. I don't talk about this to anyone but my own Confessor but I did it so you'd know I _can _relate. Tell me."

Nell tries but the words won't escape her throat. She tries harder. Finally she can't stay at the table, must leave it, must turn away and huddle into the voluminous robe that covers her feet.

"They _share _me." She huddles even more deeply, seems to shrink into the robe, her back to the quiet priest. "Among the three of them, they share me, one after the other and I have to pretend to–. I _can't _say _no_. Betty Willoughby wouldn't say..." She whirls to Siobhan and the words are ripped from her. "I'm _afraid _to say no."

She tries to hold it but has to turn away again.

Siobhan leaves her chair, comes up behind her, but when she reaches out and touches her shoulders Nell cringes. She draws back.

x

Nell forces herself to turn back, tries to force her voice to steady but it quivers as much as she does. "In LA... I'm the smallest - other than Hettie." She uses the end of the blue sleeve to rub away tears she can't hold back any longer. "I've been smallest all my life," she says up to Siobhan. "Eric, Deeks, Callen…. Sam's a _giant_, he's more than twice my size. The first time I hugged him I think he popped a rib. He's a human brick wall but it's never occurred to me - not _once _- to ever be afraid of any of them."

Even in miniature on her computer screen Siobhan had seen the reactions of the men and women, particularly of the tall man with the glasses who wouldn't leave the room until Hettie Lange had pressed him. "They seem like good people."

"The best. If even one of them was with me I wouldn't be so afraid - all the time. Sam, he'd break any of them in half just for touching me."

"I'm sure he would." Sam's the big black man?

"But I'm _scared to death_ to go back to that room, knowing that one or two or all three are going to ... to ..." She turns away so violently the robe flies out.

Siobhan says nothing. It's not her place so say anything. Eventually Nell will fill the silence with words, or she won't. Now she's filling it with quiet sobs and Siobhan works to mask her anger.


	10. Locked

Chapter Ten  
Locked

Gibbs tries to ignore the impertinent buzzing near his head but as it continues its unrelenting noise he places it. His cell phone vibrates on the night table beside his head and is increasingly annoying.

Anyone with half a brain would know better to disturb him, but whoever's making his cell phone buzz has no sense of self-preservation.

"Are you going to _get _that?" a voice from his left asks tiredly and this wakes him more thoroughly than all the explosions of Desert Storm.

He opens his eyes, sees the tousled blonde hair on the head turned away from him and a hundred memories slam him. 'Oh, yeah.'

Tired as they were from a day of work on Friday followed by a night of marathon interrogation followed by a full day of work tracing the stolen Uranium with complete lack of progress, he'd met up with Hollis Mann, wanted to lose himself in the evening and realizes now that he did.

He reaches up over the blanket, grabs the offending noisemaker as Holly turns over toward him. "Good morning," she sighs, puts her head down on his chest and uses it as a thumping pillow.

x

Ignoring - rather trying to ignore - the tickling of her blonde hair spread over his bare chest, he flips open the phone and the words displayed on the screen ruin his Sunday.

[Alpha 0800]

He looks at the clock on the night table, 0623, but the call hadn't included voice, just the non-cryptic message. Cynthia Sumner has learned his preferences, occasionally strives to outdo him, but this message says a lot.

"What's happening?" Holly asks, her words vibrating his chest.

"They're calling all the Alpha teams in. Arnell's team has the weekend rotation." He shifts sideways, comes out from under her head and sits up, except his body still hasn't rested enough to wash out the aches. A shower will have to. He pushes himself up to his feet.

"Well," she says, sitting up and letting the blanket fall away, "may as well get up." She puts just enough innuendo into her tone. "What time do they want you in?"

"Eight." His tone carries the 'of course' better than words could.

"Thought it'd be seven." She smiles, deciding this means that "We can save water on the shower."

xxx

"Timmy?" Siobhan McGee's concerned tone seems to come out of the air over the round table and pulls his attention from chairing his meeting with the rest of the Avengers. Hawkeye and the Wasp still snipe each other, Thor is glaring at the Archer with rumbling annoyance Tim isn't sure isn't miniature thunder in the meeting room and he's just about to bring them both in line before Giant Man expresses his irritation with a giant palm to the Archer's head when the table, assembled heroes and the entire headquarters in Tony [Iron Man] Stark's mansion turns into a hotel room and a white landscape of mattress leading toward a curtained window.

"Honey, wake _up_," Siobhan's stressed voice comes from behind him. "We're locked in."

This is enough to bring him to full wakefulness, and when he turns over it's to a second surprise. He'd fallen asleep with Shav cuddled with him, now she's dressed in her 'working clothes'; black skirt, light blue back-button shirt with her stiff white collar encircling her throat. "Whaa?"

"We're locked in."

This time he's more awake and looks past her toward the door. Her words make no sense; it's an ordinary hotel door, electronic key card on the hall side, manual locks on the inside. "How can we be locked in?"

"Not us, everyone. The whole hotel is locked down."

He sits up; yesterday's fantasy arena coupled with NCIS' intrusion into his long anticipated weekend off and now "What?"

"I went down to go to Saint Andrew's, it's about six - seven blocks from here–"

"Why didn't you wake me?" He'd certainly have gone with her. What would inspire her to go to a 'new' church alone?

"I _did _wake you," she tells him with strained patience. "Once when I woke up, once after my shower, then a third time when I was almost ready to go. Your last answer was 'brexgegt' so I left you a note and left." He follows her pointing finger to the complimentary hotel note pad propped up against the night table lamp.

"But when I got downstairs all the hotel doors were guarded, three men on every door. No one's allowed out or in."

"Says _who_?" He's a Federal Agent; no one keeps him in but

"The CDC. The hotel's Quarantined."

x

He shoves the comforter and blankets aside; it'd been chilly after enjoying the fantasies the inspiration of their late night fun and the sensory overloaded day had inspired quite too much and he hadn't wanted to turn on the heat afterwards any more than he'd wanted to dress. He swings his legs over the edge of the extra-firm bed, rubs the last of sleep from his face and looks up at her.

"Shav, pretend I just woke up and don't know what you're talking about."

"_Leathcheann dúr_. Remember those people who were taken out sick?"

"The Center for Disease Control quarantined the hotel because of three people?"

"Sixteen."

He wants to give her back 'six_teen_?' in incredulous tones but there's no point; Shav's not inclined to hyperbole. He crosses the room to the bureau and collects underwear and socks. The thick pile carpet feels good on his bare feet. "We'd better get down there. While I have a quick shower you should get dressed."

"I _am _dressed," she shows him with a wave of hands over her body.

"Not like that."

"What do y–?" her emerald eyes widen. "No, a grá, you–"

"We're under orders to keep a low profile."

"Green Lantern and Captain America are low profile?"

He won't remind her that 'they are here'. They've both been in the news as themselves far too often over the past year. "We've both been with Nell Jones. We can't risk her cover by appearing bare faced if I - or you - are recognized."

"So Captain America is going to start flashing an NCIS shield?"

"No, we're just going to be two fans who haven't the first idea what's happening. Now come on, get dressed."

Lips pressed into a tight line, she reaches back under her flame hair to release the stud that holds her white collar together. As he heads for the bathroom he can hear her whispering but can't understand the words; her lessons in the tongue of their ancestors haven't touched upon these concepts.

xxx

MTAC seats 24 in the theater style chairs, three rows of double fours, but the members of the four 0800-1600 teams; Gibbs plus three with McGee on vacation, Lamb's two, Kelman's two and Higgins' two Field Agents fill half the seats by groups and all give their attention to an evidently stressed Director. No one is on their normal schedule; this is obviously an effort to quadruple the guard.

Only Rosa Arnell, Michael Sagan and Peggy Wilson are undisturbed, they're covering the weekend Alpha shift so they're midway through their 12 day stretch. Shepherd hasn't called any of the Beta Shift agents into this meeting, she apparently has other duties for the 1600 - 0000 Agents.

Everyone displays the effects of an unexpected summons. Gibbs checks his own people; Tony's unshaven, Ziva's hair is pulled into a tight pony tail and Michelle's eyes are bloodshot. She catches his eyes on her and traps a yawn behind clamped lips.

Shepherd stands before the assembled agents and her first words slam sleep from them. "Al Qaeda has announced on Al Jazeera that they're going to use stolen radioactive material to punish the United States for our 'decadence' by killing more people than can be taken out by 'knocking down a few buildings'."

x

Most of the agents are impressed that the enemy is showing his hand on this. Saying so explicitly that they're going to use the stolen fuel is somewhat overexposing even for them.

"What do we have?" Gibbs asks.

"Homeland, having been read into the USS Roosevelt situation, considers this a credible threat, and every government agency has this on top priority. FBI is investigating domestically; CIA is putting all their resources into foreign operations. NCIS, CID, OSI and CGIS are checking everything on their own fronts. All forces are at Def-Con 3. We're _all _under Homeland direction, all information is funneled through them."

"I thought Grekor Kanyicska was at the Meritz to buy the uranium," Kenneth Templeton says.

"We're playing this as a 'change of plan'."

"What about civilian information?" Lisa DuBois asks.

"Too late to try to contain anything. I got a lot of my details through ZNN on my way in. The President has ordered that a positive face be put on this: al Qaeda doesn't have access to nuclear bomb making technology, Inspectors worldwide are certain no material is missing–"

"In other words," Higgins cuts in, "the usual spin-doctor bullshit. Sit tight, Big Brother has you covered."

Shepherd won't even sound annoyed at the interruption or bald faced summary. "Right."

"Any idea where they'll hit?" Gibbs asks.

"Absolutely none. East coast, west coast, the heartland, none." She turns to the stocky, grey Supervisor. "Special Agent Higgins."

"Director?"

"Frank Hodge and his cohorts."

"Already breaking them at Bethesda."

"I want to hear the cracks here."

x

"Director," Sol Mitchner speaks up, "what about Khodadadi?"

"He remains our top suspect for selling the Roosevelt uranium." Her eyes are on Arnell.

"BOLOs are a waste of time without a face," she says.

"Anything on the guy Special Agent Jones is working?" DiNozzo cuts in.

"Grekor Kanyicska remains a viable prospect for buyer as well, but detector trucks include the Hotel Meritz in every sweep. An Arms dealer can do tremendous damage with twenty five pounds of fissionable material, and from what little chatter we've been able to decipher we suspect he does have at least one bidder offering sixty million."

Gibbs' cell phone rings; Shepherd holds her exasperation, it does no good to reprimand the man, especially in public for interrupting a briefing.

A glimpse of the external screen before flipping open the unit. "What is it, McGee?"

/Boss, we have a situation brewing at the hotel. Sixteen people suddenly sick, being shipped out to every available hospital. CDC has the place on lockdown. Any chance this Grekor Kanyicska deals in Biological weapons too?/

Gibbs passes along the information, knowing that if his best Computerized Information man hasn't got the answer then it might be something recent in Kanyicska's bag, something McGee can't access.

While several agents access a variety of electronic resources, DiNozzo sums up their situation with "Atomic bombs, dirty bombs, now Bio bombs."


	11. Tongue War

Chapter Eleven  
Tongue War

McGee closes his phone, turns to his wife and realizes from her expression that his must be telegraphing his thoughts. "There's no indication Kanyicska ever dealt in bio-weapons."

"I imagine it'd be a nightmare in not infecting himself."

"One reason so few people use them," he says, looking across the crowded lobby, "You can wipe yourself out along with your enemy, but I still want to get confirmation from Nell Jones that he's not branching out..

Both Captain America and Katma Tui have interacted with the woman. Neither of those methods will work again. "So how do we do that?"

"Darned if I know. But I have a bigger question."

"I know. If your Mr. Kanyicska isn't doing biological warfare–"

"Then why are so many people getting sick?"

x

The hotel lobby is immense, about a hundred feet long and forty feet of public space wide, enough to allow for three widely spaced revolving doors to the street. These face two complete Registration desks, with Concierge Service at the far right end. An escalator to the left of the entrances runs constantly to the first of three levels of four huge ballrooms. There are elevators at the far right, cars leading from Lobby to 11 and 11 to 25 stories. Every way in or out of the hotel is guarded by MPDC Police supplemented by Hotel Security, and their orders are to let no one other than Official Personnel in or out of the building for any reason.

Tim McGee has already determined, by calling the CDC and using his authority as a Federal Agent, that those orders come from Doctor Gregg Dixon, Field Supervisor for the Center for Disease Control. He'd issued those sweeping and restrictive orders due to sixteen undetermined maladies that have swept this hotel in a matter of hours.

The four thousand square foot lobby is filled with guests, not just those here for the four-day Greater East Coast Comic Art Convention but scores of luggage burdened guests who had intended to check out this Sunday morning and to continue with their lives.

Those lives, plus all those of the people present down here and on the 28 floors above them, have been put on indefinite hold. The obvious exits are locked, and Siobhan has already checked so many of the 'back door' exits what they're certain no exit has been missed.

Until the CDC can determine the cause of this fast moving plague, things will not change.

Tim keeps Siobhan and himself at the outer fringes of the increasing crowd as word spreads through the revelers upstairs and to additional guests that no one is allowed to leave.

Few, based on the rising tide of angry words that filter through the vast lobby, feel kindly about this.

x

Tim's surprised when Shav/Katma Tui breaks away from him and joins the crowd. She goes to three of the most vocal complainers, leaves him no choice but to follow and, when he does, he's surprised to hear her say in a voice heavy with Irish rage: "I can't believe this. They can't keep us in here."

"No, they can't," Daredevil, accompanied by Black Widow, votes.

"It's not fair," Katma Tui gripes, turning from them and walking deeper into the lobby toward another knot of people. "Does anyone know why we can't leave?" she asks these four people, none of them in costume but quite evidently, from the bags they carry, part of the Convention.

"Something about people being sick," one of the two women says.

"What has this to do with us?" she gripes.

"I don't know. If people are getting sick here, why are they locking us in with them?"

"It's stupid," one of the boys declares.

Shield tucked high up on his right arm, Tim finally catches up with the green costumed woman, grabs her elbow. "Sweetheart, what are you doing?"

She looks back to him. "Chumasc leis an slua." When he can only give her a blank look under and through the half mask she sighs in deep exasperation. "Má táimid na cinn amháin nach gearán, seasamh dúinn amach agus beidh daoine cuimhneamh dúinn." He can't rub the blank expression away and that only seems to exasperate her more. "Sa chaoi seo beidh orainn a bheith ach dhá sa slua agus ní bheidh aon duine fógra."

"What?"

She pulls out of his grip and walks away. He follows but she doesn't stop until they're on the outer edge of the crowd and she turns to him, pitches her voice low. "I said 'I'm blending in with the crowd. If we're the only ones not complaining, we stand out and people will remember us. This way we'll just be two in the crowd and no one will notice'."

He's impressed. "Undercover 101."

"Apparently not."

He shakes his head, having to admit she'd caught him flatfooted so he _probably _deserves the rebuke. "Just, please, next time run over your play with me before you make it."

She grins. "You mean you want to get into a scrimmage?"

"Later," he assures her, putting his arm about her shoulders. No one takes any notice of Captain America escorting Green Lantern away.

xxx

Ziva grips the phone receiver tighter than necessary to strangle it. "Lazazl za chshov om ala li nitn tshibha ani ltis kel hadrch chzra lshm olkria at hatshibit ichid am alshim slch!"

She slams the receiver onto its cradle hard enough to make it whimper for mercy.

"How's it going, Mis-Diplomacy?" 'She's really beautiful when she's pissed,' he thinks.

"One would _think_ that the purpose of having a Liaison between NCIS and Mossad would be to _facilitate the exchange of information_."

"Whoever said an exchange of information is the natural order?"

"Well, there is nothing at all _natural _about Officer Dunsel."

"Whoa, three points for the Star Trek reference."

"Well, I did not think much about that M5 computer either. How did you do?"

He wants to claim great success, but tosses down his pen. "Struck out. Center for Disease Control could make one sick. I get better information from my Insurance carrier about why they don't cover things that could actually make people sick."

x

They turn to the third member of their team who's still conducting a cryptic conversation, but by her tone she's finishing with "Geulaeseo dangsin-eun geuga jeonhyeo i il-e cheoli doeji anhseubnida hwagsil haeyo? Gamsahabnida." She hangs up the phone.

"Who was that?"

"I was speaking to my North Korean contact."

"Very funny. If you don't want to name names you don't have to be–" There's no humor in her eyes. "You're kidding."

"I'm not kidding."

"She's not kidding," he says to Ziva, then whirls back on the woman. "You're not kidding?"

"No."

"You're in communication with North Korea?"

"Yes."

"WHY?"

"I wasn't getting anywhere with the People's Republic of China."

He relays to Ziva that "She wasn't getting anywhere with the People's Republic," then whirls back. "ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?"

"Not yet, though Jimmy is driving me a little crazy."

"The Gremlin's driving her a little crazy. _You're Certifiable, lady_."

"Not really. It pays to maintain secret sources with the enemy."

x

DiNozzo again looks to Ziva, feeling like his head is ready to explode, wondering what universe he crossed into and how to get back home before this world's Gibbs comes back. He does not, however, get any help from the woman and turns back. "_Wha-at_?"

She grins. "Special Agent Kelman has a connection she allowed me the name of quite some time ago. We communicate only on urgent matters. He's an American sympathizer but must be extremely cautious, which is why I am sworn to never give his name."

"Does Gibbs know about this?"

"Who do you think allowed her the contact? It was during her covert mission in Seoul about two years ago when they met."

"Okay." He remembers that case but if he continues this, skull shrapnel will perforate the walls. "So what did you learn?"

"The man I spoke to confirms Grekor Kanyicska does provide them with military weapons. He does not, however, deal in bio-terrorism. Too much chance of backfiring. He prefers solid weapons."

"So what did you say?"

"Geulaeseo dangsin-eun geuga jeonhyeo i il-e cheoli doeji anhseubnida hwagsil haeyo? Gamsahabnida."

"Very funny."

"I thought so. I said 'So you are sure that he does not deal in this at all? Thank you'."

He turns to Ziva. "And what did you say?"

"What does it matter what I said, Tony? It did not work." He doesn't ease up. "I assured him that if he did not answer me I would fly back there and rip the answer out of his mouth along with his tongue."

"And you couldn't say it in English?"

"English does not have the necessary nuances."

x

"Well, while you two were doing your Berlitz performances I was digging into American contacts – in English."

"What did you get?"

Again he has to admit the galling answer, though he'd prefer one of the women to remove his teeth with a butter knife. "Nothing."

"You'd better have something," Gibbs declares as he passes on his way to his desk, ubiquitous coffee in hand.

"Not much more than you have, Boss."

Gibbs stops, matches eyes with each of his agents, and goes around his desk, sits down. "That bad."

x

He's just come from a dissatisfying interview with Abby who has told him a lot about the spread of disease infesting the Hotel Meritz. While she complained vehemently about the difficulty of getting details of the illness, she was much more forthcoming than her scientist counterparts on how easy it is to spread an unknown biohazard through five thousand closely confined people who are dependent upon air conditioning systems. She just can't do anything about it.

No, he reasons, that's not fair. If she had access to particulars he has no doubt she could make great strides in solving it. He'd determined that the first thing he would do when he got upstairs was to get her that access.

On the uranium threat, she has plenty of information, just none of it new. And not being highly motivated by potential danger to Tim – and Siobhan – the Center for Disease Control hasn't said a word through any channel they can talk to or eavesdrop on since the shutdown of the hotel.

He reaches for the phone, ready to go to war or, at the very least, to start cracking some heads.

As much as Abby might be motivated, this is one of his people trapped in the middle of this; his Agent - and okay, his agent's wife too and NCIS' Chaplain but...

Okay, there's another agent there too, undercover. The question about her is how much can she hel–

/Center for Disease Control, how may I help you?/

"Special Agent Gibbs, NCIS. Tell me about the disease infesting the Hotel Meritz."

/I'm sorry, sir, I know nothing abou–/

"Connect me with the head of your infectious disease department."

/Please hold./ Canned music comes on in mid-note and Gibbs slaps the 'speaker' button and sets the receiver down. Wile the tinny music plays in his ear, he might as well get some work done while he navigates the labyrinth of telephone bureaucracy.

'How does Jenn do it?' he wonders, thinking about the nightmare of Inter-Agency Interaction that she seems to play like a violin. This canned music could use a violin. 'Easy,' he decides, 'she has a secretary.' "Palmer."

Michelle looks left from whatever is on her screen. "Yes, sir?"

"Line One, CDC, Office of Infectious Diseases, Plagues, whatever. When they come on, find out what the hell is going on at the Meritz."

"Yes, sir."

He switches to line two, punches in the number for Henrietta Lange, SAIC for the Office of Special Projects, Los Angeles. The woman knows everything there is to know about Grekor Kanyicska and he intends to get it by the steam shovel load.

xxx

Captain America and scarlet faced, black haired Green Lantern Katma Tui have decided they've learned all they may hope to learn either from listening to the conversations of costumed and non-costumed fans or from talking to barely responsive CDC personnel, and now ride the escalator to the first ballroom level.

While they could learn more by stepping out from under cover - something Siobhan would prefer to do - Tim has vetoed the move until he can be sure that revealing themselves will not endanger Agent Jones or their operation with the uranium sale.

When they reach the first four ballrooms, they can feel the atmosphere of the convention has changed. It's no longer celebratory, certainly not care-free. Even those who haven't been to the lobby have learned about their situation - at best locked in and at worst locked in with a deadly, communicable disease - and it has definitely sapped the party.

True, the ballrooms still go on as they had yesterday, films and Dealers rooms, panels and exhibits, but the spirit of the event has changed.

Then Tim mutters softly "Two o'clock."

For an instant Siobhan's about to check her watch under her white glove until she looks up, sees that he's looking slightly to the right and follows his gaze to Nell Jones – the enslaved Princess Leia – accompanied by Darth Vader.

Accompanied is hardly the word, for Vader holds a large chain in one black gloved fist and the other end extends to the ring in Jones' iron collar.

Siobhan turns away lest anyone see her anger. 'He's leading her around on a _leash_.' she thinks, clamping her hand closed to drive her nails into her palm even through her white glove, using the limited pain to keep her control. 'He's treating her like an animal.'

x

She fights the anger down, concentrates on the rest of the venue before her. Darth Vader is either Grekor Kanyicska or one of his posse, even Jones rarely knows, but if they're to keep their distance from the agent then they're certainly not supposed to get close to the Arms Dealer or one of his bodyguards.

They can't flee, but she and Timmy can shop and hope the other woman can withdraw far enough that they can discreetly survey the pair.

In time they will go, when leaving seems natural, but for now–

She keeps the pair in sight by the corner of her eye, but Jones catches her eye and pauses for an instant, her face a mask. But in that moment Vader stalks away and Jones isn't ready, the chain spins the collar about her throat and the pull is so hard she's almost yanked off her feet.

Gagging, she tries to keep up and right herself, but she's dragged bent over in the most obscene manner, and all who notice this display seem more interested in the almost naked slave and what they might catch sight of before she rights herself to follow her 'master'.

x

"Ba mhaith liom a fheiceáil conas maith _sé_ a bheith ceirteacha tarraingthe faoi ar slabhra!" Siobhan mutters, feeling her volcano smolder.

"What?"

"I said I'd love to see how _he_ likes to be pulled about on a chain," she seethes.

"We can't do anything about it."

She turns to him, almost finding a new outlet for her anger, but fights it. That he's right only adds fire. She turns away back to the table before her, but clenches her eyes, blesses herself and prays for the strength not to use what strength she has to teach Vader a lesson.

It's nearly a minute before she can open her eyes, and when she turns there's a girl before her wearing a green mini-dress that makes her look like a plant, except for the spiked eyebrows and pointed ears and a smile that would put a Vulcan into traction.

"Come on, people," the spritely Elf from Tanagar IV urges. "Smile. This is a party."

"Party?" Tim asks, unsure which of them has missed something.

"The last Convention of our _Lives_. Time to celebrate."

"Yes," Siobhan says, apparently stepping into the spirit.

"Huh?" Tim's astounded. A second ago he could've fried an egg on her black wig.

"Yes!" the Elf exults. "Eat, drink and be merry," she exclaims, throwing her arms wide in ebullient glee, "for tomorrow we _die_!" She moves on to another group watching from nearby and Siobhan's grin self-destructs.

"I think you can add euphoria to that list."

"I was scared for an instant. You were going to freak me out when you agreed with Tinkerbelle."

"Don't worry, a grá," she says, patting his coweled cheek. "When I decide to freak you out, you'll know."

"Good. For a moment I thought this was another idea of yours to blend in."

"Well, actually, hon, it was." She doesn't sound like she wants to blend in, though she's making a game attempt to fight down her earlier outrage.

"So says the woman who wears a white collar every day."

"Exactly. I'm tired of standing out." She raises her white gloved hand to him, her thumb activating the tiny switch to make the green LED ring glow.

But behind the red faced mask he knows what she's thinking, and it has nothing to do with parties – unless it's to roast Darth Vader on the pyre from Chapter Six.

xx

"I really don't believe this," is what she's whispering fifteen minutes later as they enter a dark ballroom on three where 'Galaxy Quest' plays out on the distant screen. The movie is at the point where Tim Allen, playing a Shatneresque actor, is in his home crawling about on the floor in his robe while searching for his shoe while the Thermian leader Mathesar and his alien crew try to explain their mission.

"Don't believe what?" Captain America whispers as they search out two vacant seats in the blackened room, the only light coming from the shifting images in the screen.

"_This_." but her emphatic whisper is drowned out by cheers from scores of women as Allen searches the floor in his bathrobe in a shot Tim has always believed the censors let slip by less because of lax standards than that they really weren't paying attention.

"As Elf Lady said, 'eat, drink and be merry'."

Green Lantern's retort is cut off by another burst of delighted shrieks. "They're a bit _too_ merry," she gripes when the noise abates.

They finally find two seats five rows from the back and work their way in, Green Lantern takes his shield across her lap and uses it as a table. He notices that while she watches the screen, her hand works over the red, white and blue surface, traces the border of the star.

"They can't get out," he points out quietly. "Con's expensive, might as well continue it."

"Meantime, what do _we_ do?"

He shrugs in the darkness. "Watch the movie." He feels her turn her body completely to him but her voice is dead.

"You're kidding."

x

Tim Allen, a.k.a. Jason Nesmith, soon to be a.k.a. Peter Q. Taggart, is now in a limo getting a Mission Briefing from the Thermian leader Mathesar and an utterly shocking update from Laliari while on his way to a rendezvous with destiny.

"Until we hear otherwise, it's low profile and keep out of Nell Jones' way."

"Suppose she needs us." She'd needed them before, and Siobhan's still griping over being unable to help. They'd spent two hours in the room upstairs and feels she's accomplished nothing.

"Look, we've made contact, she has my number and my cell's on vibrate," he pats the red and white stripes that encircle his waist. "Until she or Gibbs or anyone calls us we follow orders."

"SSSHHHHHHHH." the sharp sound cuts in from the row behind and Katma Tui turns, sits back in her seat just as Commander Taggart, napping and quite oblivious to his predicament, is beamed - limo and all - aboard the Thermian spaceship.

"I still don't like it."

"Shhhh."

Siobhan, utterly incredulous, stares at her husband and fights to restrain herself from elbowing his colorful ribs.

xxx

The formidable Henrietta Lange finishes her conference with Gibbs by hanging up before he's removed the receiver from his ear. That conference had yielded no joy. Grekor Kanyicska has no history of dealing in biological weapons, which they already knew, so either this is something new for him or he actually is innocent – of this matter, at least. However, if he isn't there for bioterrorism, it's almost certain he's after the uranium.

However, Abi Hassim Khodadadi hasn't made an appearance, and that has him worried. No one can get in or out of the Hotel, and until the principal players can get together the uranium, wherever it is, is going to stay hidden.

"Speci – Boss?" Michelle Palmer calls across the bullpen.

"What've you got?"

"A Doctor Miranda MacFratters was very reluctant to give me anything, but I finally managed to get a brief rundown on conditions at the Meritz. There are twenty three cases now, victims are being removed to isolation facilities but the nearby hospitals are filling up fast and they've opened a triage in the hotel gym. If the epidemic increases its rate of spread it will overwhelm the hospitals and they won't be able to take any more people into their Isolation wards. Symptoms include nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, headaches, intense fatigue, difficulty swallowing, dryness, loss of taste, rapid heartbeat."

"Sounds like hell," DiNozzo says. "When I had the plague I didn't have that long a list."

"What about the McGees and Special Agent Jones?" Ziva cuts in.

"I couldn't get any names," Michelle says.

"McGee checked in," Gibbs says to silence the speculation. "What's the cause?" he asks Palmer.

"So far they don't know."

"No cause," DiNozzo says, "so no cure."

Gibbs is out of his chair immediately.

"You going down there, boss?" DiNozzo asks, hopeful of some action, something to get them out of this room and fighting an enemy, even if it is a microbe. The quarantined hotel is the seat of an unknown, deadly al Qaeda threat and he's been in this chair for too long. _He_ can torment and kill McNoodle, al Qaeda has no such permission.

"Not calling for volunteers."

"No need to," Ziva declares, already pushing her arm into the sleeve of her black summer jacket.

"Ducky and Jimmy are standing by for our signal," Michelle says as she comes around from behind her desk.

"Send it."


	12. Avengers Assemble

Chapter Twelve  
Avengers Assemble

On the huge white screen at the end of the thousand seat ballroom Commander Peter Quincy Taggart of the NSEA spaceship Protector has rallied his erstwhile crew for their first epic battle with General Sarris when Captain America's camouflaged waist pouch starts to vibrate under Katma Tui's hand. He digs out his cell phone, gets one word out before being silenced and, as Katma watches in the darkness she sees the Captain's movie illuminated face set.

He's silent for almost too long, then finally closes and puts away the phone and turns to her. "Avengers Assemble."

x

Out in the lighted common corridor to the floor's four gigantic ballrooms he turns, his shield held close in perhaps subconscious preparation for battle. "Gibbs and the others are on their way in, Ducky and Jimmy too. I'm to break cover, find out everything I can from whomever. You're to find Nell Jones, who's probably not going to be hard to find."

"I'll just follow the crowds of men."

Nell had been dressed both yesterday and the evening before as a too un-attired Slave Leia, and is dressed the same today, having essentially no costume to clean. The young woman's accoutrements consist of gold metal French curls that only pretend to support the brown material of a slave bra, together with two long purple strips that barely reach her bare feet and don't meet at her hips, an oddly shaped gold 'crotch shield' that's not positioned low enough to protect her modesty from any inconvenient side breeze, all topped off with a sturdy iron slave collar.

Siobhan would die before she'd be forced into that outfit for an hour, let alone tolerate it for three _days_, so she welcomes this assignment. "She can finally get out from under cover and cover up?"

"No," is Tim's outrageous response.

"Timmy..."

"You're to keep her in sight, but still don't engage. If I call your phone, it means her cover's done and Gibbs is going to take Kanyicska down. That happens, grab her and run."

He starts to step away, she grabs his arm, yanks him back and he falls into her kiss.

xx

When Tim McGee descends the escalator to the lobby, choosing this method rather than the elevator for the long bird's-eye view this offers, he sees the scene much changed from earlier this morning. The lobby is almost bare, but three men stand guard over each of the three revolving doors that access the street. Even from this high vantage, they look nothing like doctors. Perhaps it's their Men-in-Black manner that gives them away, but he's had too many years dealing with the FBI not to know them on sight.

Granting the pointlessness of dealing with front line Agents who probably know little more than he does, as soon as the moving treads deposit him on the level he heads for the middle, therefore the main, counter to his left.

Stepping up to the maroon jacketed man, he finds himself anticipated. "How may I help you, sir?" the clerk asks, "And before you ask, I'm very sorry but by order of the CDC we can't let anyone out."

"I don't want to get out," he says, finishing pulling his ID folder. Years of Gibbs' tutelage have made him as practiced at lying as at flipping open the double level case. "Special Agent Timothy McGee, NCIS, I need to see the Agent-in-Charge, I expect he's set up a Command Post in or near your Manager's office."

Having used up almost all of the clerk's possible counters, he's left him with little to say beyond "Yes, sir. Come with me please?"

x

In truth, as he's let into the inner corridor and through a door, McGee would prefer to forego this encounter. However, he's led to an immediate left through an open door. The room, with its mahogany desk and walls, its red plush furnishings, is everything an ornate hotel's manager's office would be, but the woman seated behind the overlarge desk offsets it. The black suited man standing before it, so as to be between himself and the woman, fills the air with officious grandeur, a sense of command wholly inappropriate to the overwhelmed setting. The room is so packed with tension Tim's surprised there's room for anybody at all.

"Every time I have to see you," Tina Ambrosino says when he comes into sight beyond the human barrier, "I lose five years off my life."

"Sorry about that." He's not sure he is, he feels no culpability in the present situation but the black suited man turns and demands of the clerk

"Who is this?"

Before Tim can answer, belatedly realizing his blue mask with wings and large letter A still covers the upper half of his face, Ambrosino 'introduces' him.

"This, ever since _last_ May, is the bane of my existence - and I _am _banning all future Comic Book Conventions. Every time he and his cronies come here, and this is the third time, someone dies."

"That's not fair. No one died the last time we were here." In fact, NCIS had saved both Zabeth - or rather Elizabeth Stillwell - and her boyfriend William Rolonio.

"Well, you're making up for it this time."

The words slam into his gut like a fist. "Who– how many have died?"

"Not yet, maybe, but soo–"

"_Who IS this_?"

x

"Sorry." His ID case is still in his hand and he exchanges introductions with, he's surprised to learn, not an FBI Agent but Homeland Security Operative Charles Kerr.

"What is NCIS doing here?" Kerr demands as Ambrosino dismisses the clerk with an imperious wave.

"Agent MacNee is here to make my life a living hell," Ambrosino answers for him.

"MacNee is the Avengers," Tim crams his frustration into the already stuffed room.

"I thought you were an Avenger," Kerr says, which Tim decides scores him a point. He doesn't want to be butting heads with Ambrosino but can see no way around her attitudes, so he focuses on Kerr.

"I thought the CDC was in charge."

"The CDC called us in because this disease is too suspicious. It's running rampant, worse than any disease the Doctor in charge ever experienced. Whatever it is, it's taken out twenty two people in less than twice that many hours."

Tim feels his stomach clench. He'd woken up to sixteen. "They don't know what it is," Kerr continues, his force filling the last crevasses of the room, "but _I _know NCIS has no jurisdiction here."

"I could play the 'we were here first' card, but the truth is we're here on a possibly related case."

"What case?"

McGee opens his mouth but it's Leroy Jethro Gibbs' voice that comes from behind him. "Trying to stop an Arms Dealer's weapons buy."

x

Kerr can barely believe that the men and women simply walked in behind Captain America. What the hell is going on outside with his people guarding this locked tight hotel? "Who are you? How'd you get in here?" He feels his already tenuous control of this situation slipping away from him. No wonder Ambrosino doesn't like NCIS.

There are five more people behind the black jacketed, black capped intruder, and like him they wear blue surgical masks. The six intruders range from short and old to tall, eye-glassed and young, along with two women of undetermined age, one of whom, now that she steps out from almost behind one of the men, he sees is smaller than the old man wearing the incongruous light blue fishing hook hat.

The blue masks, hooked behind their ears, cover their noses and mouths. They also wear latex gloves. They're the only six people in the hotel, besides the CDC doctors and nurses who are so protected.

"Revolving door," the leader says succinctly, his voice unmuffled by the blue cloth.

x

Gibbs won't reveal all the details, such as how the Homeland agents had tried to keep them from bringing in additional medical professionals or how he'd assured the agents inside that the revolving doors would be unlocked or shattered.

He's seen enough outrages already when he discovered that the convention has been going on as usual, that masks and gloves have not been issued by the thousands and the hotel and convention guests - thousands of them - are confined yet allowed to congregate randomly and in close quarters through air-conditioned halls and rooms that spread the contagion throughout the building.

Ducky, seeing this situation, had nearly had an apoplectic fit. He'd distributed the masks and gloves, giving strict orders that they be worn every second the agents are here. Gibbs had been afraid the man might flood the city's hospitals with every last person in the building. It was only the fact that there are, by McGee's earlier estimation, some eight thousand people here that had stopped him.

x

"What have you learned about this disease?"

"That NCIS has no jurisdiction."

"True," Gibbs admits, surprising his team. "We have our own case, but I do have three of my people here on it, now a lot more."

"Which if you hadn't broken quarantine you wouldn't have put at risk," Kerr declares, glancing at the knot of people behind the grey intruder. "I'm sorry to say you're probably now all infected by whatever this is if it's airborne-"

"If it's airborne," Ducky says with rocky anger, "you have failed to take even the most basic preventative steps to safeguard anyone, even your own people."

"Ducky..." McGee stops at Gibbs' look but the older man turns to him with great regret.

"I'm sorry, Timothy. We actually have no idea what we face, but if it is an airborne infection you and everyone else here have been exposed long ago. I can do little more for you under current conditions. I cannot even say if these preventatives will have any effect but I could not admit anyone without–" He's more annoyed than appalled when Gibbs pulls off his surgical mask and gloves. "_Jethro_."

"If it were in the air there'd be twenty two hundred cases by now, not just twenty two."

"Yes, that's most probably true," he turns to the others, none of whom have followed their boss' dicey example, "but I must insist that you others remain covered." He doesn't mind that the Agents get confirmation from their boss; he has direct authority over only Jimmy Palmer unless he decides to exercise his transcendent medical authority, though he does note that Jimmy exercises silent 'authority' over his wife.

"Now I'm going to ask one last time," Gibbs declares, using his few inches extra height to particular effect as he looms over the Homeland agent, "what do you know about this stuff?"

"Go to hell."

Gibbs pulls his cell phone from his pocket. "Think I'll send you there."

x

The cell rings only three times. /Thomas Morrow./

"Afternoon, 'boss'. Gibbs."

/_Well_, to what do I owe this pleasure, Jethro?/ the former NCIS Director inquires.

"No pleasure, sir. We're at the Hotel Meritz: my team, Ducky, Palmer, NCIS' Chaplain and an agent from OSP Los Angeles. We're trying to get info on a possible Arms buy and getting no cooperation from your agent Kerr."

/NCIS has an operation in the quarantined hotel?/

"Dragged to a stop now, sir."

/You always did get yourself into the damnedest situations./

"Yes, sir."

/Let me talk to Agent Kerr./ Gibbs passes over his phone.

"Who is this?" Kerr demands. A sickly light illumines his eyes. "Yes, sir. Yes, sir." The pauses between submissive agreements grow steadily longer. "Yes, sir. Whatever you say, sir. Yes, sir. Good day, sir." He passes the phone back, his earlier fullness flattened. "I'm to extend every cooperation."

"Don't feel bad. He was our Director before he was your Deputy Director." He puts the phone away. "What about this disease?"

x

"It's running through the convention guests but not the other visitors or the hotel staff. There's a Food Court in a quarter of one of the fourth floor ballrooms, so the first thing the CDC did was to check them out. Everything's at the right temperatures; sealed cases, they took samples of everything, it seems to be all clean. They're checking the air conditioners, the vents; in this heat everything's in operation but so far there's nothing funny in the air conditioning. But like I said, only those in the three ballroom floors are affected. The victim's rooms were swept, nothing."

Ducky steps in closer. "Had the victims been in contact with one another?"

"Unless you count same Convention with a couple thousand other people no, they were strangers to one another. All had guest rooms scattered through the hotel, no apparent pattern, but CDC swept them. They're clean."

"Ducky, this place gets crowded. A lot of times people are touching, it's like sardine cans in some of the dealers' rooms."

"That could be how the disease is spread, either through direct contact with a sick person or, far worse, someone could be spreading a virus deliberately."

"Mamoun Sharif did that passing along infected money," Tony reminds his colleagues.

"What are the symptoms?" He considers he'd heard bits and pieces, he wants it all now.

"Nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, headaches, difficulty swallowing, dryness, racing heartbeat, dry cough; they're pretty much going through hell."

"Same symptoms for all of them?"

"Pretty much."

"What else do they have in common?"

"My people have interviewed all twenty two of them, both here and at the hospitals we've moved them to. This hotel, this Convention. They're from all over the east coast from Maine to Georgia, one from Kansas, one from Arkansas, one from Toronto. All arrived Thursday, they have rooms all throughout the hotel."

"All of them alone?"

"Yes."

x

"There has to be something more. While we cannot dismiss the theory that someone is wandering this convention infecting random persons, I prefer to eliminate first the possibility of a common denominator, however small or obscure it might be. What sets these twenty two apart?"

"Both sexes, age 14 to 48. Whatever it is, we haven't found it."

"Where are the medical reports?"

"Doctor Dixon's still in charge."

"Where is he?"

Kerr looks to Ambrosino.

"We've converted the gym and pool areas into wards," she says, "though we drained the pool and hot tub."

"I should expect so."

"They're the only areas that can be closed off. They have their own temperature and humidity controls."

"Where?"

It's evident she's not pleased by his manner but can do little beyond fuming, which she does sulfurously. "This floor, rear."

"Come along, Mister Palmer."

Gibbs notices that the masked man follows his mentor while giving a brush of fingers across the back of his wife's gloved hand.

x

"McGee, you and DiNozzo research those people. They have something in common, what is it?"

McGee turns to Ambrosino. "Is there an office available where we can set up?"

It's quite evident she'd love to tell him where to go. She gets up from her chair, pulls a ring of keys from her pocket. "You can use the Business Office off the Lobby. Come along, Captain MacNee. You too, DeNutsy."

Tony had just begun a grin at the MacNee line, remembering the connection to another set of Avengers, but it collapses at the DeNutsy.

"McGee."

The costumed man is halfway out the door, turns back. "Yes, boss?"

"Lose the superhero get-up."

"Time to come back to work, wing-head," DiNozzo says, glad to be getting back to normal; a.k.a. one up on the Probie.

"David, Palmer, back out there and find Nell Jones. If she's alone, I want her SITREP before I decide–" he's cut off by Kerr's ringing phone. It's a classic tabletop phone's ring, which he decides says a lot about the man.

"Kerr. Where? How bad? Be right up." He puts away the phone. "Another one sick in one of the ballrooms on three."

Gibbs signals the women to follow him, has his cell phone in his hand already as they leave the office. Palmer One can read reports, he wants Ducky in on this from the top.

Ducky may plan to leave for two weeks in Scotland on Tuesday, but that's the day after tomorrow and he's damned if he'll call on that fill-in ME for anything. This ends by tomorrow or the man's not going.


	13. Arrest

Chapter Thirteen  
Arrest

Finding the ballroom with the sick man is easy; it's the only lit one with a blank movie screen at one end and a huge vacant space in the rear third left. Homeland Security Agent Kerr, together with Gibbs, David and Palmer enter, blue surgical masks firmly in place, and the scene tells its own story. Everyone in the rear third of the huge room has scattered for safety elsewhere, those in the forward section cower in a mob, fearful of approaching the retching man huddled on his hands and knees in an aisle, perched over a widening mess that puddles up and stains the intricately decorative carpet.

The only ones that are near him are three figures - male or female is impossible to tell - encased in bulky white Hazmat suits that would have blended in with this Convention except that the occupants do not play at fantasy.

Gibbs, David and Palmer, protected only by latex gloves and Ducky's surgical masks, draw no closer to this scene, and within a minute Ducky arrives, but Gibbs blocks his attempt to get closer.

"You sent for me, Jethro, but I don't see what I can do from twenty five feet back."

"Watch. Observe, tell me what we're dealing with."

He examines the scene before them. "You, or rather they, are dealing with a male Caucasian, approximately twenty five years old, who is reduced at this point to retching dry heaves. Now that is all I can tell you until I examine him."

"When they're done, I want the vomit."

Ducky turns, looks up to him. "Have you ever considered, Jethro, that NCIS is one of the very few career choices in which you might actually say that?"

xx

However, when the Hazmat team has carried the man away on a stretcher delivered by a fourth member of their team, and Ducky follows them, Gibbs and the other agents discover they have a more immediate and pressing problem.

"_Let us out_!" someone from the tightly packed crowd in the front of the room demands.

"The hotel is under quarantine," Charles Kerr, Homeland Security Agent-in-Charge of this operation, says in an authoritative voice that goes nowhere under a rising tide of protest.

"You can't keep us here" is the general consensus of the rising swell of angry, frightened voices.

"There's no place to go. Dozens of Doctors are right here working on the problem."

One man pushes through his fellows. "We don't care about that." He strides forward. "We want out!"

"You can't get out."

"Fuck you! I'm leaving!" He looks back. "_Who's with me_?"

But rather than joining the charge, the people fall back and the man turns face to barrel with an automatic weapon.

Neither Ziva nor Palmer will draw unless Gibbs does but the surreal standoff holds the shocked people back.

"What the _fuck_? You gonna _shoot _all of us?"

Gibbs steps between him and Kerr's gun, ignores the weapon at his back and pulls off his mask.

x

"No, we're not going to shoot you, but the doctors you need are here. You go outside and you might not reach a doctor."

"What's causing this?"

"We don't know. We're trying to find out. Those of you with rooms, go back to them. Stay away from each other."

"We don't have rooms," comes a ragged chorus from various parts of the room.

"Then stay down here. And if you feel sick come to the gym, that's the med site. There are twenty three people out of thousands sick. We don't know why, we're working on it, but we can't do that and hold back a riot."

"Too bad." He advances toward the gun.

"GET BACK," Kerr orders, stepping past Gibbs, gun again at ready.

Gibbs slaps the gun aside and turns to step before the man. He doesn't say anything, a break between them will destroy both their credibilities but he's determined to win this.

"All right," Ziva declares, stepping around Gibbs, "the movie is over, you must stay in the hotel but go somewhere else."

Brandished guns and angry men make the decision for most of the trapped people who make their way on either side of the knot until the agents are alone.

Gibbs locks eyes with Kerr, his voice stoney. "If you were one of mine–"

"But I'm not one of yours, you're one of mine. I'm in charge here."

"Short memory. Were you going to shoot him?"

"If I had to. Wound him only. He was building a riot."

"Shoot him to save him."

"We have to keep this, whatever it is, contained."

"You don't know how it's spread. We should shut down this Convention."

"Thought of that. There aren't enough rooms." His cell phone jangles, he pulls it to his ear. "Kerr. What? Be right there." He shoves it back into his pocket. "_Shit_."

"Another one?"

"Another _two_. A couple on the 9th floor." He leaves alone.

Instead of following for further debacles, Gibbs pulls out his own phone, presses a speed combination. He'll call Morrow later; this man has got to go. "McGee."

xxx

Siobhan McGee, still costumed as the scarlet faced, black wigged Katma Tui, Green Lantern of Space Sector 1417, keeps her eyes half on the ballroom exit, three paired brown wood doors. With the hotel in lockdown, few are in a Convention mood though the Dealers and Exhibitors continue, as do many of the programs whose participants can't get away. Siobhan knows that somewhere in this semi-crowded room is 'Slave Leia', the barely clad Special Agent Nell Jones from Los Angeles' Office of Special Projects. Nell's under cover - what an irony that is, for the poor woman has to stay 95 percent naked - and she's been ordered to keep close in the event this case breaks and she has to get the agent out of here.

She's not looking for her, keeps her attention on the three doors halfway across the room, glancing fairly regularly while pretending to shop the books, magazines, collectables and other wares. She needs only to know when Jones leaves so she may follow her discreetly, then openly ignore her in whatever room she goes to.

x

Siobhan allows her attention to wander to the tables around her. Jones isn't in the forward half of the room so she's somewhere behind her. She forces herself to concentrate, or at least look like she's concentrating, on the tables as she moves from one to another. Timmy may not have taught her much about covert surveillance - okay, nothing - but she knows that watching the doors more than the tables is no way to be an undercover shopper.

The room is only half full, the buzz of conversation not as oppressive as it had been when fighting the crowds and trying to keep bodies off hers, so she can actually walk along the aisles beside the tables and look at the merchandise being hawked, keeping her ears open. She still plays the part of Green Lantern - there are many die-hard fans who refuse to give over even in the face of death and she tries to appear as one of them even while trying to focus on prayers for everyone when she hears a too familiar voice behind her. She glances back, sees she's gotten careless. Nell Jones, the undoubtedly chilly and certainly quite embarrassed Slave Leia, is barely ten feet away and accompanied by Darth Vader.

'Oh oh, target at five thirty.' She can't leave, not without calling Vader's attention. She isn't even sure if this is the same Vader who'd so outraged her earlier. She concentrates on the table before her, scans the rows of paperback books, maybe a hundred fifty paperbacks set staggered on the long table, each two-thirds covering the one beneath it so the titles are visible. She's barely interested, these are just a good distraction; the titles are not new, mostly Classic ones, quite a collection; mostly Science Fic–

_Whoa_!

x

Can it be? It _is_. She picks up two of the books, feels her heart speed up. There are 7 white-bordered paperbacks in all, each with antique space scenes of ships and space suits and heroes; E.E. 'Doc' Smith's 'Lensman' series. They're displayed out of sequence but there's 'Grey Lensman' on top of 'Triplanetary' next to 'Children of the Lens', and there's 'Second Stage Lensmen' under 'First Lensman' ... all 7 books in near mint condition. She had these books as a girl, wore out the pages living the adventures of Virgil Samms and the generations of the Kinnisons.

She shoves her excitement down, very difficult though that is with her heart pounding. She halts her breath until she's sure she can keep a steady voice, lets the breath out carefully and puts on her haggle face. "Excuse me," she asks the man seated behind the table, "how much are these?" She waves her hand over her accumulated treasure.

"I can let you have them for $8 a piece," the young man says. "The science is so old no one–"

"_Sold_!"

She'd expected to hear fifteen, was ready to wear him down to ten. Pulling her wallet from her long strap mini-purse, her one concession to the mundane world's intrusion onto the Green Lantern mystique, she takes out a fifty and a ten, completes the deal and takes the white bag of treasure, already contemplating a week of quiet evenings on and about Tellus and outward to Lundmark's Nebula–

"_Donaldson_!" a woman's voice to her right snaps.

x

Reverend George Donaldson is her partner, Rector of Saint Mary the Virgin Church and she's occasionally addressed as such by people who don't read the sign outside the church correctly; but even as she starts to turn toward the voice, an automatic correction nearly on her lips, she realizes the call isn't usually made so emphatically.

She stops, actually freezes when she comes face to Sig with a _gun _pointed between her eyes from six feet away - and beyond it is Ziva David!

She glances right, an automatic reaction to the need to flee and is astounded by Michelle Palmer. Her friend's gun is trained upon her heart.

"Georgette Donaldson," Ziva snares her attention and Michelle steps in, turns her and pushes her over the book table, pulls back her arms and locks _handcuffs _onto her wrists. "you are under arrest."

"Hey, let her go. You can't do this," a male voice declares into this surreal scene. She looks over her shoulder to the young man who waves his arms to the other watchers, trying to incite them. "This is police brutality. They can't arrest her."

"Federal Agents." Ziva declares. "Back off."

"Federal brutality," the kid decides.

"You have the right to remain silent," Michelle declares and gives her shackled hands a squeeze at the final two words, and she pulls her upright as Ziva's gun shifts aim and the kid decides his fun isn't worth what this Fed will do. "If you give up the right to remain silent-" Michelle continues with another squeeze, "anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law." Michelle hurries through the last sentences as a crowd grows and people are realizing that perhaps the one responsible for their confinement is being arrested in front of them.

Michelle snatches up the white bag containing Siobhan's books as Ziva clears the way with her voice and gun. The two agents quick march the astounded Green Lantern through and out of the huge ballroom.

x

They cut through the outer foyer between ballrooms, attracting more attention with each rapid step until they reach the elevator, which Ziva's Sig quickly clears.

When the doors close on the three women "What the–" Siobhan bites it back hard, tries not to tug at the handcuffs. She won't be forced to say it no matter how outraged she is. "Is going on?"

"The right to remain silent," Ziva insists. "You are our prisoner."

x

The opening of the doors into the main lobby cuts off any more words. Green Lantern is propelled through the lobby, Homeland Agents open the front door and the NCIS Agents push their green, black and white costumed prisoner into the street, left along the sidewalk and stop her at the curb at the back of the parked white over black MCRT truck. The rear doors are opened from inside by Captain America sans his winged blue cowl.

"You _cuffed _her?" he demands of his partners, massively outraged as Michelle and Ziva boost Siobhan up the step and Tim helps her into the truck. "I can't believe you _cuffed _her," he says with greater fire before Ziva, still outside with Michelle, slams the doors. Tony DiNozzo is already behind Siobhan, puts his key into the lock.

"Relax, Timmy." She'd been outraged until he was, but at her husband's fire she starts to change her mind. "It was interesting. I've never done the perp walk before." The cuffs disappear with a clatter into Tony's back pocket.

"You make it sound like a dance," DiNozzo says.

"Don't," Tim says in lingering aggravation. "Please. Just don't."

The door opens again and Gibbs climbs in.

x

"Sorry to pull this," he says to the costumed McGees, breaking Rule 6, "but we had to work fast. I need my team back and Green Lantern's done."

"You didn't have to _arrest _me," Siobhan declares. Despite the Convention having half fallen apart, parts were fun and she was enjoying them.

"We need a priest out there more than a superhero." He points to a shelf.

She sees a short stack; her black skirt, blue Clerical shirt and circular white collar. Beside the stack are her black high heeled shoes. She doesn't see nylons but won't say anything about it now; these are men and she doesn't feel like trying to explain.

"Hero_ine_, and you could've as–" Anger is crowded out by realization. She looks up into Jethro's eyes and is sure. "You're flying blind."

"We want Kanyicska to think we're clueless. That's why we took you right under Jones' nose while she's with a Vader. There are three Vaders at this party, they might be together and switch out when one's with her. Green Lantern's been seen with Jones, we can't know how badly she's been compromised, if at all."

"There are 15,000 registered guests for this shin dig," Tony says, "more than half got trapped here when the doors were locked. A tenth of them are in some kind of costume, there are way too many masks and we can't lift them without probable cause or we tip our hands."

"You're also needed inside," Gibbs finishes.

"I've tried to help, but couldn't do it openly, not as Katma Tui."

"You're going to have to do it openly. There are twenty five down now, three in the past hour and we nearly had a riot with scared people wanting to stage a jailbreak."

Gibbs reaches into his pocket and pulls out a Convention ID tag. "Time for Georgette Donaldson–"

"Cute." Her ID card has her real name but it's pinned to the small pouch that hangs from her shoulder and was turned against her hip so it had never been easily read.

"to disappear." The stringed card he hands her reads on two lines 'Rev. Siobhan O'Mallory'. To her questioning look he'll only say "Can't have too many McGees."

"That's the first thing you've said that I agree with," she tells him with a smirk.

x

"I still don't like it," Tim gripes from behind her. She turns.

"Like what part, sweetheart?"

"You showing your face in there." Her eyebrows go up, much in warning. "You know what I mean. You were just on the NCIS website on Friday for the Memorial Service."

"Yes, a chuisle," she says, her fingertips brushing his cheek, "but you of _all _people know that ní mná solas teacht ó lantern."

He glances past her to the other men. If they're taken aback by her sudden shift to Gaelic they say nothing. "I do?"

"Um hum," she assures him, tracing his cheek with one white gloved finger.

He glances at Gibbs and DiNozzo and when she turns neither of them seem willing to take a guess. He has to. "What would I know if I were in America?"

She smiles slowly. "A woman's light doesn't come from a lantern."

x

Her makeup case, including all she needs for removal of her red face, are already in the truck, so she shoos Gibbs and DiNozzo out. Only Tim may stay, though Michelle, out on the curb with Ziva, takes the moment's opportunity of the open rear door to place her bag of books on the floor to the left side.

"Where do we stand?" Siobhan asks her husband, taking off her black wig when the door is closed. She pulls at the bobby pins that hold her red hair in place.

"_We _stand right where we did before. Can't approach Jones. Whoever's involved in this is probably costumed and masked and we can't force anyone to unmask without giving away the game." She shakes her head sharply, her fiery mane falling into place and he turns her around, pulls down the zipper. The pink half-bra she'd put on this morning is one of the very sheer Victoria's Secret gifts that had never been intended to be worn through mid-afternoon, but her regular one couldn't be hidden under the tight costume.

She tries to ignore her scarlet face and the uneven end of the makeup that had stopped under the collar of her costume as she pulls the black sleeves, tugs the top of the costume off, leaving only the too wispy pink bra. "People are sick and getting sicker," he continues, "and Homeland _should've _evacuated everyone to hospitals when they had the chance. Gibbs managed to cow Homeland into an uneasy alliance only because their Deputy Director used to be our Director."

"Thomas Morrow?"

"That's the one. But Homeland's Agent Kerr considers these people cannon fodder for his breaking this case." He helps peel the overly affectionate costume down her legs, running his hands along her legs to push and not missing a chance for a very close peek at the narrowest part of her very small pink wisp of Victoria's Secret panties, all he'd left her with and all she'd been able to wear without lines showing.

She sits down on a folding chair, pulls the emerald faux boots and the rest of Green Lantern's costume off. She looks at the stack of folded clothes upon the shelf. "It didn't occur to you to bring me some underwear?"

"Huh?"

"Never mind." There is none other than more Victoria's Secrets and she can hardly expect he'd have asked Michelle or Ziva to shop. She can't ask now, she'd have to tell them why she needs it and this private business is staying so.

"You're perfect just as you are."

She stands up, feeling particularly naked in the wispy pink bra and panties - she'd have murdered him if he'd dared to go so far as _crotchless _- but she feels her body warmed by his fiery gaze. She pulls him close, their lips meet and his arms encircling her body complete the warming as she reaches up his back.

Her slap bounces his lips off hers.

x

"_OW_! I liked the first part better." She recalls his making this complaint once before and supposes he has a point. There are some things that shouldn't be imitated.

"Well, a grá, don't make part two necessary." She steps out of his grip, moves aside her blouse and collar on the shelf and shakes out her folded skirt. "What more is there?"

He looks like he's not quite in the mood to answer, but the others are waiting for them outside the truck."Ducky and Jimmy are in the gym, it's now an Isolation ward and triage mini-hospital for the new cases before they can be moved out the back Service Exit to hospitals that may be taxed beyond their limits before this thing is over. There are three people there now, the newest of the cases. We don't know how people are getting sick; the café and the hotel restaurant came up clean but right now Homeland's concentrating on the air conditioning."

She hooks her skirt into place and he hands her the light blue, short sleeved blouse. "These people need a priest and we need a miracle."

xx

Only Michelle is waiting for them when the McGees alight back onto the street. He's back in brown slacks and button down white shirt with shield stuck onto his belt, she's in black knee length skirt, light blue short sleeved Clerical blouse and the stiff white collar encircling her throat. Both look about expectantly before converging on Michelle.

"Where's Gibbs?"

"Slapping heads," she says in a way that conveys he would if it would help. "Cases twenty six through twenty nine have been found in various parts of the hotel, you're to see what they have in common. He wants you and the others in plain clothes," she says, removing her jacket and cap. "NCIS has officially made the arrest of the terrorist," she looks to Siobhan, "and pulled out with her. Special Agent Edsen will ark the truck a few blocks away and stay ready." She looks to Siobhan. "You're to stay in sight of Nell Jones, while working with 5,000 people."

"Is your cell phone on?" Timmy asks.

"Yes." Her tone says 'of _course'_ when her words won't.

"If I call you, it'll mean that things are breaking and you get Nell, grab her and you two run like that legions of hell are chasing you."

"Oh, darling, I can run ever so much faster than that."

He checks the power on his own cell phone. He knows hers has different programmed ring tones; he doesn't know which tone is his but she'll know his call from anyone else's. "This is going to be hell."

"No, a chuisle, I'm waiting to see how Jethro applies his Fragibbsie Rules of Inquisition with this crowd."

Michelle tries in vain to smother her giggles. "I have to remember to use that."

"I dare you to try," Timmy cautions. He looks to her. "Ready to do this?"

She feels her smile collapse. "Counsel a thousand people, offer prayers for five times that many, give Last Rites to..." She shudders. "Don't ask me."


	14. Red Alert

Chapter Fourteen  
Red Alert

Ducky, in the Hotel Meritz's hastily converted gym where everything that could be moved had been shoved to the nearest wall, switches a damp white cloth for another off the forehead of a woman in her mid-twenties. She starts to say something but groans, clutching her stomach.

"I think I'm going to be sick again," she forces the words between clenched teeth.

"Come. Try to sit up. _Mister Palmer_..." The bucket beside the stretcher had been replaced only two minutes ago. The young doctor has been running himself ragged, using his medical skills between doing the work of a half dozen Orderlies.

"Right here, Doctor." He arrives on the other side of the woman, steadying her while her body tries to decide how sick it is and what it wants to expel next.

"Did those samples get off to Abby?"

"I took care of it."

"Let us hope she can find some answers."

xxx

Tony DiNozzo has gone abroad in search of someone to interview. McGeek, the Gandolph the White of Computers, has taken over the Hotel's Business Office; which is a grand name for a pair of Wi-Fi Internet linked computers, a printer, phone and fax machine. Unfortunately, he reflects as he makes his way through the hotel, the ones who could provide the best answers are too sick to do so.

True to Gibbs' orders, and not from preference, he stops at the first tee shirt dealer's table he comes across and buys a 'Lord of the Rings' shirt, Liv Tyler in her Arwen persona emblazoned upon it. Not all bad, he decides. If he has to blend into this mob, it's at least something he can live with.

After pulling the colorful shirt on over his real life shirt and adjusting the collar, trying not to encounter a mirror, he enters the next of the rooms, the front half of which is given over to Collectables from a vast number of sources, some of which he recognizes from last year's fiasco. Not wanting to get distracted - his main target is supposed to be a Darth Vader, he scans the half crowded room for his partner. Gibbs and Michelle cover the second and third floor ballrooms so he's decided to work the fourth floor with Ziva, probably the only one who dislikes this Convention nonsense more than he does.

She has good reason. Kidnapped last year and electro-tortured by the sadistic Karl Hogan in the guise of 'Electro', she'd then shocked everyone by winding up in the arms of Probie-Wan Kenobi before he'd left her to date - and then marry - a Priest.

Altogether, it's been a hell of a year and now, back here again, he's forced to wonder if they're about to begin another year of hell.

Then he passes through the group consisting of Vampirella with her thin scarlet bands which spread at collar to rejoin at crotch; blue Shadow Girl whose costume is a thin stripped X from shoulders to hips; Black Cat, midnight costume enhanced by a white mane; Zatanna – oh, if Ziva sees _her_ – and Elvira with her most generous décolletage, he tries to track all five of them in passing and wonders if hell is such a bad place after all.

Vampirella and Elvira bring to mind Abby's excursion with Michelle and Director Shepherd, but the less he dwells upon that Movie Night in the 'House on Haunted Hill' party, the better he'll feel.

x

He spots Ziva deep inside the room, next row to the left and takes a step toward her, only to be momentarily diverted by a passing Wonder Woman whose stylized WW bustier is definitely losing its battle, but he yanks his attention, with considerable difficulty, back onto business and his partner.

When he reaches the row and a good vantage he sees Ziva has encased herself in an Enterprise NX-01 tee shirt. It doesn't go with her personality, but he does admire her nacelles.

Then he sees that she's found their most useful informant in the case of Leslie Greene and her kidnapped friends. Robert Hostler is a Fantasy Photographer, who specializes in custom portraits. He takes the picture against a variety of CGI backgrounds and then does inspired touchups that transport the customer into that world. Want to shoot a phaser or blaster, do magic battle with Voldemort with beams coming out of your fingers, glow like an angel? Hostler is your man.

He's almost lost in curly brown hair and moustache, while his day glow red tee shirt shouts in nine colors "Want to be a Superhero?" Judging by the many 8 x 10s that cover his booth, the general answer is 'yes'.

Though he doesn't need the introduction, when Tony gets to the booth and Ziva sees him, she gives him one anyway.

"I could never forget either of you," Hostler assures them while Ziva looks over Tony's choice of 'undercover' attire, which he knows he'll spend weeks living down.

"Have you seen anything weird at _this_ convention?" he asks.

Hostler looks about, from the huge winged Butterfly Woman to a man and woman dressed as a Starfleet Commodore and a Romulan Officer, from a black garbed Vampire to Gandolph and Bilbo and back to DiNozzo. "Define weird."

"Touché." He feels like he could search this booth like he would a suspect mug book and probably find something interes–

"Tony." He glances at his partner, then follows her stare into the rear of the booth, where several framed photographs are lined up on the carpet, one before the other, and in the front of the row of largest ones is a distinctive image.

x

It's a space shot taken from one of Saturn's moons, the tremendous planet and its majestic rings in the upper right background, the vastness of space hinted in the upper left. On the planet a very female Green Lantern, though with red face and black hair indicative of the Koruganan race – a barely useful fact given him by the Probemeister in a weak moment – is fetchingly poised. Her body is surrounded by an emerald aura and the ring on her white gloved hand resting upon a delightfully curved hip shines brighter than any star.

"Whoa _ho_. That's quite a shot."

"Like it? Your partner's wife."

"No _kidding_."

"He talked her into posing for it yesterday, it was just going to be an 8 x 10, then he came back alone about an hour later and upgraded it."

"Probably going to hang it right in the living room, right in line from the door. Now me, I'd put it in her office."

"I think if you did she might forget her vows and injure you severely," Ziva predicts.

He decides to drop it. He's already on her semi-permanent 'zhit list'. "Well, have you seen a redheaded 'Slave Leia Organa'?"

Hostler thinks for a moment. "Yeah, I saw her a few times. Couldn't get her to pose."

"That's one picture I'd like."

"She a friend of yours?"

"No, she is no friend," Ziva declares, her hard glare reminding Tony to say

"No."

xxx

Gibbs snatches his cell phone from his pocket and flips it open partially through the first ring. "Yeah, it's Gibbs."

/Gibbs, Higgins. Sparks and Hodge broke like they were tied together by the scrotums. Sparks only knew Hodge had the names, but when Hodge was given proof that he'd been given up, he gave up the ghost. You're looking for al Qaeda agents who are going to make the deal at a public place, a hotel right in the middle of the city./

"I know which one." A sharp beep sounds in his ear. He pulls the phone away to look briefly at the outside screen. "Hold on, I have Abby coming in." He presses the switch button. "Gibbs. What've you got, Abs?"

ooo

Nearly two minutes before Gibbs takes her call Abby hears her lab door open and footfalls sound in the outer room, but she's so focused on her computer screen that she doesn't look back. Gibbs is in the field, at the Hotel Meritz, and though there are other teams in this afternoon they don't have the drawing power that her favorite agent, her 'Silver Zorro', has; so whoever it is can–

*NNNNN* *NNNNN* *NNNNN* *NNNNN* *NNNNN* launches her to her feet, the God-awful noise shattering her eardrums and her nerves with one horrific blast after another. She runs to the door which doesn't slide open fast enough and she hurts her shoulder trying to get through. The sound is louder out here, she can barely hear herself scream in her own head but she does see SA Tina Larsen backing away from an evidence case on the floor, the panic in her face telling Abby the blonde woman wants to run in every direction at once.

*NNNNN* *NNNNN* *NNNNN* *NNNNN* *NNNNN* *NNNNN* *NNNNN* *NNNNN* *NNNNN* *NNNNN* Abby rushes to a rarely used button on her Lab Alarm Control box on the wall and slaps it, the sudden silence almost making her think the alarm had deafened her. Then she hears Larsen's stentorian breathing and turns on her. The woman's chest heaves with her fright. "_What did you do_?"

"WHAT DID _I_ DO?" Larsen nearly screams. "What the HELL was THAT?"

"Radiation alarm," she says in a more normal voice, Larsen's startled anger restoring her own calm as she looks down at the plastic box laying on the floor almost between them. "What did you bring?"

"I didn't bring rade–" She backs off, forces herself to calm at least her voice. "I did not bring radiation, I brought some samples Jimmy Palmer sent from the Hotel Meritz. You're supposed to find out what disease is cutting people down."

Abby goes to a cabinet, takes from the back a small yellow rectangular box with a wand attached with a long coiled wire. She activates the Geiger counter and it immediately starts a staccato clicking. She steps closer to the sample box, the clicking comes faster and louder; she bends close and the noise leaps to a loud buzz. "_Whoa_." She backs away, the noise falls off gradually. "This is no disease; this is enough radiation to give the Hulk a bad day."

She goes to another cabinet, squats down and pulls out a large heavy cloth, almost a small blanket, comes back to the box and drapes the grey material over it. Almost at once the Geiger counter slows to an occasional click.

x

"I _carried_ that from the hotel," Larsen gasps. "Am I gonna _die_?"

"No." Abby picks up the Counter, brings it close to the woman. There's a slight increase in the rate of clicking, but even when Abby runs the wand over Larsen the rate doesn't go up much higher. "This is alpha radiation, it can't penetrate skin. I made a mistake about the Hulk, you'd have to breathe the stuff in or swallow it."

"It's vomit and blood and I wouldn't swallow–" she's too disgusted to continue.

"Well, whoever ate this stuff got pretty sick."

She hurries to her office and the three sided phone on her desk, hits buttons as fast as she can, sets the system for multi-call. The ringing takes forever.

/Yes, my little lotus blossom,/ Ducky's amplified voice greets her. The words are his usual jovial greeting but the voice is tired.

/Gibbs/ the other call connects. /What've you got, Abs?/

"Listen, you two, you are _not _fighting a disease or plague. Those people you're treating are sick _because they're eating the uranium_!"


	15. Holding Out For A Hero

Chapter Fifteen  
Holding Out for a Hero

/Of _course_,/ Ducky exclaims on his side of the connection through the three sided phone on Abby's inner office desk. He's speaking from the converted gym; she doesn't know where in the Hotel Meritz Gibbs is but an anxious Tina Larsen stands behind her, her face nearly as white as her blouse.

/Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, headaches,/ Ducky ticks off the symptoms he's been treating, /fatigue, difficulty swallowing, loss of taste, dryness in mouth and throat, elevated heartbeat – Jethro, I am an _idiot_. I should be sacked./

/Didn't do it last time, won't this time. Can you cure them?/ Gibbs asks from his section of the Hotel Meritz.

/Yes. Citrus fruits I expect are on hand. Sodium ciate increases the amount of uranium excretion in urine and feces. I only have to load these people up with orange juice, grapefruit, lemon, lime, tangerine, as much as they can stand./

/That'll cure them?/

/It will help dramatically. And now that we know what we're combating, anti-radiation treatment of the identified cases already in hospitals shall begin in earnest. After entering the bloodstream, absorbed uranium tends to bio-accumulate and stay for many years because of uranium's affinity for phosphates, but–/

/Doc - will it cure them?/

/Yes, in good time. The most anyone could have been exposed to would be two to three days. Had it been inhaled there would be greater risk of spread through the body but with it being spread through the digestive system that is actually an advantage to us. Absorption is 0.05% when insoluble forms such as oxide are ingested. Soluble can be up to 0.5% retention but exposure time is much shorter due to rapid process of excretion./

/Well, get them to excrete it faster. We'll handle things up here./

x

"Gibbs," Abby cuts in, "processed uranium is pyrophoric, that means the granules will _ignite _spontaneously in air at room temperature, so it must be kept cool before mixing with food."

/It's not in the food,/ Gibbs declares, /it's in the condiments. They're packaged for those plunger thingies so the CDC only made sure they were kept cool, and they tested for disease, not radiation. Good work, Abby./

/Yes, thank you my dear,/ Ducky adds. /You've saved a lot of lives./

"Actually, it was Tina Larsen who found the answer," Abby says, but then sees the lights on the phone have already gone out. She turns to the woman and gives her a shrug. "Don't worry, it'll be in my report."

"I don't care about that, I'm heading for the Café."

No doubt to fill herself to bursting with every container of juice on the floor. Abby looks around at her various instruments and realizes that her part in this nightmare is probably over. "Wait a minute." She scoops up the plastic evidence box within the protective blanket, finishes wrapping it about the deadly concoction. "I'll go with you.

xx

There is one setting on Gibbs' cell phone he's made sure to master, practicing weekly with the electronic do-dad on inconsequential things so that at the time he needs it he'll be ready and can hit the buttons without looking. A touch of the control brings him DiNozzo, McGee, David and Palmer and he tersely brings them up to date. There's only one location for food priced insanely enough to make sure Conventioneers will go nowhere else, and it's been given clean bills of health from the CDC which was never checking for radiation.

Al Qaeda has announced they were going to use uranium to punish the US for decadence by killing more people than by knocking down a few buildings. He'd thought it was by dirty bombs. He never imagined Al Qaeda was going to use the ultimate dirty bomb; they were going to make their victims eat it.

And by quarantining the hotel, the CDC has limited people's potential choices of meals to the people who are trying to kill them.

"Meet me on the 14th floor." He breaks the connection, links with Homeland Security Operative Kerr. He'd dearly love to break the gang that's slowly killing so many people but as an NCIS Deputy SAIC he has other, more pressing responsibilities.

"Kerr, it's the café. They're poisoning the condiments with uranium. You go after those bastards, Kanyicska has an Undercover NCIS Agent hostage."

He breaks the connection, makes one final one.

/Shepherd./

"Gibbs." Already walking at double pace, he brings her up to date with as few words as possible.

xx

When Gibbs tells Tina Ambrosino that he needs a pass card to let armed agents into 1436 he's impressed by her reply. It's been years since his Deployment when he's last heard a woman use such language to him. Marines larger than he is have directed such sentiments to him; they didn't faze him and neither does she.

"I'm coming with you," is what she winds down with. "You shoot up those rooms, NSIC is getting the bill."

"NCIS has excellent coverage."

"You'd better hope so."

xxx

Reverend Siobhan McGee, in the long corridor flanked by the third floor ballrooms, doesn't like having to keep her distance from her charge, the undercover but vastly under dressed Nell Jones, but she has no choice. The Intelligence Analyst is 60 feet away, meshed in with a crowd of fans determined to enjoy themselves despite, or more likely because of, the danger that hangs over them. Homeland and the CDC won't let them leave so the Convention goes on, but with a drastically different flavor than the first two days. It's not the 'eat, drink and be merry' attitude that spritely elf had expressed earlier, more one of 'if I'm going to die I'm going to enjoy myself first'.

She sees the redheaded Slave Leia enter one of the right side ballrooms, recalls this is the one given over to displays, auction and other memorabilia and decides to hold back. This room is lighted, no need to worry about losing the distinctive woman in a film room's darkness, but if she follows her too closely into yet a third room since she caught sight of her she _could _draw attention and ruin the agent's cover. She'll wait a min–

"Are you real?"

x

The question coming from her left is just odd enough and she turns to find red and white garbed Saturn Girl and blue skinned Shadow Lass beside her. "Excuse me?"

"I'm sorry," Shadow Lass stammers, "that came out wrong. Everyone is so - no one is what they... Are you a real priest or is this...?"

"Yes, I'm real," she says with what she hopes to be a reassuring smile.

"It's just that, well, you see, everyone so worried that..."

"Are we going to all die?" Saturn Girl cuts in.

"I don't think so," she tries to muster all the confidence she can along with a quick mental prayer for guidance. "The doctors are working very hard. In fact, I know two of them and I have the utmost confidence in them."

"It's just, well, we're ... We're scared." Shadow Lass hardly has to tell her, she can hear it in her voice, see it in her face and read it in her too bare body. What was Timmy saying earlier about painted Superheroines? "They won't let us go home; we were _supposed _to leave this morning. Now we can't get out. We're not sick, but we're afraid of _getting _sick."

"Do you _really_ know the Doctors?" Saturn Girl presses.

"Two of them, yes."

"Are they any good?" Shadow Lass' eyes show she's wavering between terror and panic.

"I can honestly say that neither of them has ever lost a patient." She slowly steps to the side, puts herself gradually - and she hopes unobtrusively - in a position where she can see the Ballroom door beyond the girls. She can't get inside any more, but she can watch for Jones' exit and follow later.

"You know, God is with us here," she tries to assure the girls. "He's sustaining us and He will help carry us through this if we but call upon Him..."

xx

1436 is midway down a corridor and has nothing to distinguish it or to indicate that one of the world's foremost and yet inconspicuous Arms Dealers, Grekor Kanyicska, is behind it. Gibbs and his team know from Nell Jones' Intel that there are at least two men in Kanyicska's posse, but they have no way of knowing how many people will be in there. Will they catch Kanyicska with his Darth Vader helmet down? Will they make a clean sweep of the Arms Dealer and perhaps recover the uranium?

He plucks the key card from Ambrosino's hand. "DiNozzo, McGee, left side high and low. David, Palmer, right side." There's such diversity in the women's heights he doesn't need to specify. He'll take the lock side on the right and go in middle.

He dips the white card into the handle reader, at the green light he twists the knob sharply, shoves the door and the five enter quickly: there's too little room on the right, the wall's too close but DiNozzo and McGee get deeper in and head left, Sigs leading.

There are two men, one lounging on the bed to their left, another in a chair where the suite opens to the right. Each look at the crowd coming into the room.

"Put your hands–" is as far as Gibbs gets for the man in the chair snaps a gun around and the other rolls off the bed, keeping the mattress between them.

The seated man fires and it's the signal for a criss-crossing hail of bullets.

"STOP SHOOTING," an enraged scream comes from the hallway.

No one listens.

x

DiNozzo and McGee, with no cover, keep the man behind the mattress pinned down until Gibbs, with one last glance at the motionless man slumped in the chair, steps past the foot of the bed until he has a clear angle on the wildly shooting man. "Drop it!"

The man turns with his gun leading, Gibbs needs a single shot to end the contest.

By the time DiNozzo makes it around the bed, Gibbs has spotted and points to the open cell phone on the carpet beside the body.

"Oh, that is not good," Tony declares as Gibbs steps in, checks and closes the phone, but the damage is long done. "Suppose it's too much to hope for that he was talking to his girlfriend?"

DiNozzo's too far away for a head slap.

McGee pulls his cell phone.

"Who're you calling, McGee?"

"Shav has Jones under surveillance. I call her and she gets–" he glares at the phone, then up. "Boss, I can't get a signal."

"Well, there's only a dozen places Jones can be. Find her."

McGee's exit is blocked by Ambrosino who shoves her way past and into the room, glaring at the damage to walls and furniture and the two still bodies, blood sprayed everywhere about them. "_What the Hell did you have to do that for_?"

xx

Homeland Security Agent Charles Kerr, with four of his agents, approaches the café in the corner of the fourth floor northeast ballroom and goes directly to the front counter, doesn't glance at the two women who approach the condiment table where large containers of ketchup, mustard and other flavorings stand.

Two men work the cash registers at the exit to where scores of tables are set up, all of which are filled by blissfully ignorant men and women burying their fears of disease in wildly underpriced fare that has earned the certifications of the CDC. If Gibbs is right, these people bury more than their fears. Kerr signals two of his men to head toward them as he approaches the service counter. There's a grill serving burgers, chicken and other fare as well as premade sandwiches and the servers do a brisk business.

"What can I get you folks?" the deceptively normal American chef asks them.

"Oh, how about four medium rare cheeseburgers with radioactive ketchup?"

There are smart people and there are stupid ones, and the stupid once never seem able to learn to school their expressions or their eyes. Kerr and his people have their guns out and aimed even before the agents at the toppings counter start to confiscate the poisoned condiments.

All might have gone well until one of the Cashiers dives from his stool and rolls, comes out of it with gun blazing.

Screams. Panicked people run madly or dive for non-existent cover as guns and hell erupt.

xx

Gibbs and his team split up to cover the fourth floor ballrooms. Kanyicska, according to Jones, never leaves the suite unless disguised as Darth Vader, appropriate with Jones being forced to dress as the enslaved Princess Leia but also fortunate because the costumes are so distinctive.

However, quick glances about the rooms show quite clearly there's no Vader costume up here.

Though McGee has reported more than one Vader at the convention, they can either ignore, for the moment, an unaccompanied Vader if he's not reacting as though his posse was just blown to hell or, spotting Jones, they can get her to safety. For now, they're split up in a rapid but intense search. If they fail on this level, they're to rendezvous in the northeast ballroom and use the Emergency stairs to drop to the next level.

Tim feels his head is about to explode. Over and over again as he dashes into and through rooms he tries to call Siobhan, who does have Jones in sight, but each time he tries his phone has no bars, forcing him to run in a fruitless search.

'No bars, no bars,' he seethes. '_How _can I keep getting no bars?'

xx

"I wish I knew how to assure you better," Siobhan, very much in her natural role and away from the mythical Katma Tui, says to Saturn Girl and Shadow Lass in the third floor corridor between the four huge ballrooms. Their conversation had been picked up upon and now she's talking to seven scared young men and women, the latter five not costumed or made up, but no less apprehensive. She feels like she's conducting a workshop on 'Faith and Fear' but the stakes are much higher.

She's also trying to watch past the group for Nell Jones' exit from far right ballroom, but too many times her attention is diverted by an especially intense or fearful question.

By the time she manages to look through the knot of people down the hall she could have missed _anything_, particularly Jones. 'Timmy's going to have a conniption if I missed her.'

The crowd around her is growing, she realizes, more and more people drawn by the increasing knot of bodies, attraction building upon itself until she finds herself virtually absorbed into an amoeba-like mass of bodies.

"But why is this happening?" one of the boys pleads. She wishes she had an answer, but knows that soon she's going to start repeating herself and prays for inspiration, for some other way to give the assurance that they're not all going to die.

"I don't know," she admits, her voice rising again to be carried to the outer fringes, but she knows this too has been its own drawer. "We must trust, however, that God will care for us, will protect us as He promised, and see us through this."

But even as she hunts for words of assurance she doesn't know what this disease is that has devastated nearly 30 people - when last she heard. She can only go upon her faith in God and her trust in Ducky and James and the other doc–

**Where have all the good men gone** the cell phone in her small hip-side pouch sings loudly.

x

"_Oh God_!" Her heart jumps into her throat, propelled by her breathless gasp.

**and where are all the gods?**

Too many people ahead, backward too. Every direction is blocked.

**Where's the street-wise Hercules to fight the rising odds?**

"Hey, isn't that Bonnie Tyler?" one of the girls asks.

"Yes. Excuse me." She tries to get through the people behind her, doesn't want to push but something's gone very wrong. "Excuse me!"

**Isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed?**

"But we were–"

"I'm _sorry_, I have to _run_! _Excuse me_!" She can barely squeeze through the people, her breath can't come fast enough in her heaving chest. She's failed! Is Nell _dead_?

**Late at night I toss and I turn and I dream of what I need**

She breaks through, dashes around the group, runs for the distant ballroom door.

**I need a hero! I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night.**

The door blasts open, deafening shrieks. Scores of men and women pile out, almost barrel her over.

**He's gotta be strong and he's gotta be fast and he's gotta be fresh from the fight.**

"Excuse me! Let me _through_!" She fights the human tide. The phone in her purse won't shut up. She struggles to get through. Screams almost drown out the too loud singing at her hip.

**I need a hero. I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light.**

"PLEASE!" Fight past one body after another. Mounting panic steals her breath. She pushes the oncoming hoard left and right, almost deafened by one strident shriek too near her left ear.

**He's gotta be sure and it's gotta be soon and he's gotta be larger than life, larger than life.**

"I HAVE TO GET IN THERE!" What's going on in that room? "GET _OUT OF MY WAY_!" She shoves bodies right and left but can only step one step at a time. The panicked mob threatens to avalanche her.

**Somewhere after midnight in my wildest fantasy, somewhere just beyond my reach there's someone reaching back for me.**

She grabs bodies and throws them behind her, doesn't care about anything but getting inside this room.

**Racing on the thunder and rising with the heat, it's gonna take a Superman to sweep me off my feet.**

x

Finally the ring tone is over and she's inside the door, panting almost faster than it seems her chest can heave. She's off to the side of the stampede. She can't believe that the room, filled with exhibits and auction items and dealers tables, is still half full. Half the people haven't run. Before her no one moves, everyone's in the far end of the room.

It's too crowded still to see more than a vacant field, bodies surround a broken ring, and at the distant end she glimpses the reflection of lights on a Darth Vader's helmet.

She clamps down on her words, they'll do no good. Whatever's happening, she still has to find Nell Jones in the silent mob and get her clear.

She hurries to her left, to see if she can get around the crowd and into that vacant space from the side.

xx

Gibbs and David flank the Arms Dealer turned Sith Lord – and his hostage. Through a deplorable piece of horrific timing, word of the Food Court gunfight had reached this room moments after the battle in 1436 had been cut off on the cell phone. Someone had broken in screaming of gunfire and the Food guys who survived the gunfight being arrested for poisoning the food with _uranium _and making everyone sick.

How that piece of news got out Gibbs doesn't want to imagine. It was probably someone who had ducked and covered, heard the end and bolted to spread the word. It's too late to do anything about it now.

Gibbs can only conclude Kanyicska had realized his precious uranium had gone _pffft_, knew from talking to his people that they too had gone _pffft _and saw Ziva, the first armed person on the scene and had grabbed 'Betty Willoughby', his Exotic Dancer playmate, and she became his hostage and human shield.

Gibbs took the stairs three at a time at Ziva's phone message before she engaged Vader and they made it in through two different emergency stair doors, finding 'Vader' quickly enough, their Sigs clearing their way through panicking fans.

Palmer comes in from the far corner to take position on Ziva's other side, establishing a wide arc centering upon the Arms Dealer.

Kanyicska has Jones between them, a brawny arm tight about her throat. There's enough of a discrepancy between them that the top of her head covers the whateverthatis on his chest and his gun's pressed to her head. The agents can't fire because even if they aim high over Jones' head that helmet might be armored and if Kanyicska survives more than a half second he'll blow Jones' head off.

'Vader' has a Glock 18/33, a full automatic weapon. He could hide an arsenal under that cape, certainly this 33 capacity weapon is more than enough. With a 34th bullet already in the chamber he can sheer off the top of Jones' head in less than a second and still have enough ammo left to swipe the agents and everyone behind them.

x

"Let her go, Kanyicska," Gibbs commands, his Sig lined up with the nose of the gleaming black helmet. "You can still walk out of this."

"Put your guns down or she dies," comes a chilling simulation of James Earl Jones's voice from the chest speaker behind Jones' head.

"She dies, you die."

The arm tightens and Nell is lifted off her bare feet, her face contorts as she gags, barely able to pull in a breath. She dares not pull his arm, she can choke or lose her head.

x

Tim McGee rips the ballroom door open and runs in, Sig drawn, but there are hundreds of bodies between him and the other end of the room. He'd been upstairs, not finished with the last room, a darkened theater playing the first Keaton 'Batman' movie, when he'd gotten DiNozzo's brief call "three" and run down, learning from the chaotic crowd outside which room to run for. He feels like he's left one surreal situation – Joker Nicholson's nighttime parade - for another.

No one moves, but he can just glimpse Nell Jones' head through a thin space between bodies. She's held aloft, her face red as she struggles for air. The only way he can reach his team mates is to barrel through the crowd.

No! Just a few feet away - that's _it_. That'll do it!

He hurries to the tall squared glass tower within which is the copy of the Rocketeer's Jet Pack. He grabs the glass, lifts it off the base.

"_HEY_!" the woman who he'd met on Friday - and several times since - hurries to stop him.

"Federal Agent, I'm commandeering this."

"The _hell_ you are!"

He ignores her protest, pulls the unit off the stand.

"You leave that alone!"

"No."

"You can't fly it."

"You told me how on Friday," he says, locking and tightening straps until the unit is secure on his back. Left hand control on the chest keeps the ignition on as long as he squeezes, right hand turns the dial, regulates the thrust.

x

"Back away," Vader demands in James Jones' voice.

"Not gonna happen," Gibbs counters. DiNozzo's arrived through the Emergency door to take position beyond Palmer to form the far end of the slowly enlargening semi-circle, the women between them.

Vader pushes his Glock harder against Nell's temple, his other arm strangling the hanging woman.

A loud roar rips from the other end of the room near the door and the enthralled witnesses turn as another void quickly opens.

x

Gibbs sees Tony, half turned, cut short a half step back, astonishment freezing his expression. He risks a quarter second glimpse - can't let some new danger catch him unaware - and is equally astonished to see _McGee_ near the twenty foot ceiling, riding a blast of white jet.

x

Tim feels like he's injected ten gallons of adrenaline into his veins as he turns the control to steady his elevation and leans slightly forward to move ahead.

"_TIMMY_!" Shav's shriek - he spots her at the far left rear of the crowd - nearly drowns out the roar as he moves toward Darth Vader and Princess Jones as the Sith Lord moves his gun from Jones head –

Out to him!

x

Suddenly skimming the ballroom ceiling with fans running out from under his exhaust to form a corridor not unlike Moses' parting of the Red Sea isn't the adrenaline shower it'd been.

Shav's scream rips through the room as Nell grabs Vader's extended arm. She lands on her feet and shoves the arm up and in a quarter second burst five bullets puncture the ceiling before him, shower him with plaster debris. Gibbs and the others tackle Vader and all six bodies hit the floor in a confused tangle of arms and legs - one set of legs unfortunately very exposed.

Nell is first on her feet and she kicks Vader, pummels him with a rain of barefoot kicks and stomps to every available unarmored inch of the black costumed man, doing all short of jumping up and down upon him as the team get to their feet, none of them particularly concerned with rescuing the Sith from the enraged, fire-haired Princess.

x

Tim turns the thruster control, eases down to the exhaust cleared floor until he's on his feet, the roar cuts to silence but he can still feel the vibrations in the thrill of flight.

'I flew. I finally _flew_. And I wasn't even scared." He's shaking, but it's a good shaking, gallons of adrenaline leaving no room for blood in his arteries and veins.

He's all set for the lionizing from his team - Nell's still pummeling Vader with kicks and stomps and DiNozzo doesn't seem interested in stopping her. Has it only been ten seconds? Then Shav bursts through the last of the surrounding bodies at his left. He turns to her, exultant, but her face is wet with streaming tears.

"Hon, did you _see_? I flew. I finally _flew_!"

She crashes into him hard enough that he staggers but her arms flung about him hold him to her kiss.

x

Somewhere in his mind Tim thinks of the surrounding witnesses who see a Priest – or at least someone 'dressed' as a Priest – kissing the Rocketeer; but great as it is to kiss her after the Flight of the Millennium he feels her tears upon his face, the heat of hers.

She pulls back from the kiss –

and her hard _SLAP_ cuts through the ballroom. He's nearly staggered by its force.

x

"_An bhfuil tú as do gCUIMHNE DÓIBH_?" she nearly screams, cutting through even his ringing ear.

"_What_?" he demands, stunned, the endorphins keeping him from feeling the pain - but Shav _slapped _him.

She doesn't think in Gaelic, she uses it only when she's teaching, being seductive - or is so angry she doesn't want anyone to know what she's saying – but that slap was so stunning he barely feels the pain.

Shav _slapped_ him!

x

"ARE YOU INSANE?" she cries, tears streaming down her cheeks. "_HOVERING _LIKE A _KITE _IN FRONT OF HIM! ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR _MIND_?"

His elation at his flight and saving Nell Jones transmutes into anger. Now he feels the pain. He's shaking from the flood of adrenaline, endorphin, who knows what – Shav _slapped _him. How dare she–?

"Oh, like _you_ fighting a madman who _crucified three women_?" The words are out of his mouth before he can clamp down on them.

Her face is almost as red as Tui's had been. "Like YOU _running_ into a BURNING BUILDING without anyone to help you?"

But that _slap _–

"Like _you_ moving in on a suicide bomber with TWENTY FIVE STICKS OF DYNAMITE STRAPPED TO HER?"

She's so mad she's trembling, so shattered he can barely understand her past her razor sharp brogue. "LIKE _YOU_ JUMPING TWENTY FIVE THOUSAND FEET OUT OF A _PLANE _TO INVADE A MANIACAL _WARSHIP_?"

"LIKE _YOU _GOING UP AGAINST A PSYCHOTIC _VAMPIRE _WITH NOTHING IN YOUR HAND BUT A GLASS OF WAT–?

She grabs his shirt, yanks him so hard the rip can be heard yards away as he slams into her lips.

x

It's ten seconds later and still no one's certain what to do until Gibbs, with a laugh and roll of eyes, starts to shoo the crowd back before they contaminate the scene. Other Homeland agents, just arrived, move to help and Tony turns to Nell, who'd stopped exacting her revenge at the sound of the loving couple yelling at each other.

Tony glances back at the McGees still in a clinch and grins at Nell. "That's our Timmy."

He pulls the disguising 'Lord of the Rings' Arwen tee shirt over his head and hands it to her. When she pulls it on and turns a grateful smile up to him, it's long enough to cover well past her hips, leaving her with the illusion of wearing a short dress.

x

It's nearly a minute before the McGees break for air, but they managed to ignore the work going on around them, even the thoroughly battered Vader being hauled to his feet, his gloves yanked off and replaced with handcuffs. By the time they've come up for air, he's been moved off, most of the agents with him.

"Timmy?" Siobhan asks much more softly, backing only an inch away. "Did we just have our very first fight?"

"Er, I guess so." He hadn't enjoyed it. "What did you think?"

She does think it over, decides with a slow, enticing smile "Kind of _sexy_."

He would've used any other word but that.

"Timmy?"

"Hm?"

Her emerald eyes do wonders for him as she slips her hand between their bodies and pulls loose one of the straps on the jet pack. "Do you _have _to write your Case Report … _right _away?"

That would be back at his desk, on Tuesday if he can just keep his vacation day, so "No."

She grins at him, gives him a nudge toward the far door.


	16. Excelsior

Chapter Sixteen  
Excelsior

Director Jennifer Shepherd looks up at the grim faces of Supervisory Special Agents Leroy Jethro Gibbs, Fred Higgins, Kevin Lamb and Rosa Arnell. It's Memorial Day morning, a bright Monday and completely suitable for good news.

She wishes she had more.

Khodadadi's band has been devastated in the café shootout. Khodadadi himself, who had never made contact with Kanyicska while he was betraying him, was killed along with four of his seven Jihadists. It was the model of poor planning which characterized his short but flamboyant career. Two Homeland Agents were wounded in the Café battle but they'll recover. The uranium, the bulk of which had never been at the hotel, will be recovered when the 'Black Death' survivors eventually break. Kanyicska will face a laundry list of Charges, commencing with Attempted Murder of a Federal Agent and building from there. Legal will take their time sorting through every possible indictment.

"Kanyicska, when he found out Khodadadi doped the food, was pretty pissed." Gibbs tells them. "That hadn't been part of the plan. Kanyicska contracted for twenty five pounds, he probably would've gotten less than twenty." He won't consider what the Arms Dealer's reaction could have been in a hotel filled with thousands of innocent bystanders.

"Lot more than pissed from what I heard," Arnell chortles. "Teach him to abuse and humiliate a 'volunteer' Field Agent."

"From the way I heard it," Lamb says, "Jones proved what they say about redheads."

"He won't be careless picking up a woman again," Gibbs confirms, preferring this line of conversation over the other. "Not for a long time.

x

"What does Ducky say about the victims?" Higgins asks.

"Ducky says nothing. He's finishing up packing, leaving for two weeks in Scotland tomorrow."

"Doctors Mallard and Palmer," Shepherd says, still feeling it strange to use that phrase, "agree that everyone should make a full though eventual recovery. Everyone who ate that food is being aggressively treated with anti-radiation techniques only Abby could understand or pronounce, but it's a massive operation. The plot had been to poison everyone but for the effects to be noticed in the future, when people got home and it would look like a widespread attack. They wanted to sicken everyone at the Convention, about fifteen thousand people, which is why they sold the food for less than anyone else in the neighborhood could. Convenience and price, the two irresistible draws. The ones who took sick so quickly were the ones who used excessive amounts of condiments."

"The ones who like French fries with their ketchup," Lamb says.

"Pretzels with their mustard," Arnell agrees.

"Hot dogs with their sauerkraut," Higgins puts in.

A moment of silence, Shepherd glares at Gibbs.

"Ran out of toppings I like."

She doesn't want to pursue it.

x

"Unfortunately that's about as far as we have for good news," she tells her lieutenants. "Kanyicska, as soon as his helmet was pulled off, called for his team of Lawyers and went silent."

This surprises no one. Frustrates, yes, but doesn't surprise.

"He's a crafty fox. He knows we have nothing solid on him as far as the uranium goes. He was there to broker a deal but the money was going to be paid in wire transfer, the uranium was going to be exchanged off-site. The hotel was just a meeting place and if Khodadadi hadn't changed the deal we could have had something. In a sense Khodadadi screwed us as much as he did Kanyicska, but he and his people closed their own cases when they lost their shootout with Homeland. There were only three survivors and Homeland has them."

"Is there anything we can do with Kanyicska?" Arnell asks, still annoyed at his humiliating treatment of Jones.

"We have nothing on Kanyicska that doesn't go beyond the Conspiracy level. We don't even have his cohorts to interrogate, not after that two-to-one shootout with Gibbs and his team."

"What about his firing on Agent McGee and what he did to Agent Jones?" she asks, nearly a demand.

"That's the only solid thing we do have on him, but I'm sure the lawyers are going to try to work their wonders on those charges." She tries not to consider what varieties of 'self defense' that supposed Dream Team of high priced attorneys will try to twist this into.

"What about the ones who killed Chris Drakis?" Higgins asks.

"That was all Khodadadi and his Black Death gang. We're going to work with Homeland, Tom Morrow will see they do right by us."

It's so frustrating when this is the best she can say. Her thoughts flash back to Friday, the Memorial Service and that new dedicated tree in the grove outside the east wall.

x

"Nell Jones get off to LA okay?" Lamb asks. He's sorry to have missed her; he'd met her a few months ago at the OSP and wouldn't mind repeating the experience.

"Nope, still at the Meritz with the McGees," Gibbs says.

"That's still going on?"

"Wait." Shepherd sits forward, sure she hasn't heard this right. She hadn't been interested in that Con when over the long night she'd accumulated the facts she'd just presented to her people. "They're going ahead with the Convention?"

"The uranium was never stored at the Hotel. Homeland will break those bastards who survived and find the rest of it, but it looks like there was never more than five pounds there, already in the condiments. They did a sweep of the hotel, it's clean."

"And people still wanted to stay?"

"Once the quarantine lifted and they could get out, most didn't want to."

"Incredible."

"They insisted they paid for the four days, they were getting four days, especially when the hotel manager wouldn't give the Convention Committee a refund for today, so they won't give the guests theirs."

"Those people are out of their minds."

"Comic book fans," Gibbs concludes.

"What about McGee?" Lamb asks.

"McGee's still got the holiday off. They switched to a bigger room from one of the families that did move out and Jones moved in with them since Kanyicska's suite is closed down. Something about bullet holes."

"Yes. NCIS has already received the bill for repairs."

"Padded, no doubt." No one steps into this. "McGee and McGee took Jones in but he tells me there are no costumes now."

xxx

Tim McGee - rather than Captain America - sits in the vast Majestic Ballroom, his right arm about Siobhan who sits comfortably curled into his embrace as they wait for the next event on the program. She's neither Katma Tui nor in her blue blouse and white collar, just in a Fantastic Four tee shirt in which he thinks she looks fantastic. He's chosen a Doctor Strange tee. The seat to his left side is reserved for Nell Jones, who'd better hurry down from the room if she wants to catch the arrival of the Convention's Special Guest.

Siobhan, very close to him already, gets closer still so her very quiet words won't carry beyond tickling his ear. "Darling, could I tell you something? And please don't get mad."

He turns, almost bumping noses with her. Mad? How can he be mad at her? Even when she'd slapped him yesterday he hadn't been mad. Shocked, yes. Enraged, yes. Furious, yes; but not mad.

"Of _course_."

"Darling," she says even more softly, running her fingertips along his thigh, "I know you love me, and even kind of think I'm pretty–"

"_Kind _of?" When he'd picked up the large framed portrait from Robert Hostler this morning, he'd ordered an 8 x 10 that's going to grace his cubical wall. He hasn't _ever_ thought the word 'pretty' to describe her.

"Well, what you've... Before you, I was pretty staid. I had my fashions, and they were appropriate." She'd downplayed herself far too much in his opinion, always being concerned about the 'appropriate image' for a Priest. "But you've... it's nice that you... you get me these really sexy underwear ... and I do like them... they kind of make me feel sexy–"

"You _are _sexy." How could she possibly think otherwise?

"But, darling, you're... kind of... well, you're _overdoing_ it." He pulls back, the better to see her but she tightens her grip on his thigh. "At first, when I'd open my drawer, it'd be flattering - and it _is _flattering. But..."

x

"But?" He won't think of Gibbs' $5 fine threat.

"But there are times..." She shakes her head, trying to break the discomfort. "Darling, when I'm at the Altar I don't _want_ to feel sexy; I want to feel... secure," she finishes lamely.

"I'm sorry."

"I don't want you to be sorry. Blast, this is all coming out wrong. Saturday night Nell and I were talking. We talked for hours,"

"I know." He'd checked twice; it took until after the third movie for that 'Do Not Disturb' sign to have come out of the card slot.

"Well, she had no choice about what she wore, only that horrible costume - or less, you know?"

"I can imagine."

"She had no choice - and lately I'm feeling... I packed for this weekend, I realized too late I couldn't have worn what I brought when I was in costume but... Oh, darn, this isn't coming out right."

"You want a choice."

She smiles, visibly relieved. "I want a choice."

"Fine. When you have something I won't replace it. And I won't do it at all on days you're Serving. And when I _do _surprise you, it won't be with so much."

She curls her arms tighter about his, leans closer. "Thank you, darling."

"It'll be a lot less."

She pulls back, evidently not sure if she shouldn't be afraid of this alternative.

x

"Hi, guys," Nell Jones appears on his other side, puts a huge white plastic bag on the floor before her seat and Siobhan pulls away from Tim, sits back. "Looks like I just made it," Nell says with a quick directing glance forward.

"What happened to you?" he asks, trying not to note her Supergirl tee shirt, the one copying the low 'V' with small emblem next to said view. 'Five minutes' had grown to nearly a half hour.

"I was on the phone with one of your team," she tells him with a smile. "Anthony DiNozzo, the guy who literally gave me the shirt off his back. He asked me out tonight; we're going to meet after the Con closes." She leans past him. "What do you think?"

x

Siobhan looks into Timmy's eyes as he too turns toward her, reads the question in them. Anthony has been enduring a well deserved shunning by the women Agents and he knows very well the nightmare Nell has suffered all week, therefore she knows there's more depth to that inquiry than even Nell realizes. Her tone had replaced the words 'can I trust him?'

"I think you'll have a great time. Anthony's a perfect gentleman."

Nell grins. "That'll be a relief."

"What's in the bag?" Timmy asks. By his eyes before he turned away, she can tell her husband doesn't want to think of Anthony together with a young lady like Nell after all she's been through.

Nell bends down and opens the bag, reaches in and draws out 6 inch tall poseable figures of Marvel's 'Professor X' and Doctor Strange with his distinctive voluminous cloak. He leans over to look into the spread bag, tugs at the edge and she can also see Galactus, The Hulk, Nightcrawler….

"B. Willoughby." He sounds like he wants to smack the back of his own head. She'd also completely forgotten the name and never made the connection, doesn't want Nell to realize now how badly she too has been blindsided. "But the Auction was cancelled." Timmy says. Once the quarantine was lifted, better than sixty percent of the guests had evacuated.

"I got it because I was the high final bid."

"No kidding. So what was it, $750?"

"A thousand."

"A _thousand_?" Too late she hopes his voice doesn't carry.

"I really wanted it. Well, actually, I didn't want it."

"You didn't?" she asks, confused. She'd spent enough to get it.

"I have a friend – a really good friend – who loves Action Figures. He's got a collection you just won't believe. Well, I made a lot of money at this Convention – that is, Betty Willoughby made a lot of money, and I'll probably have to turn most of it in when I get back to LA - but it was all to Willoughby's account so when you get down to it, it was _Grekor Kanyicska_ who bought Eric the–"

x

An amplified voice fills the tremendous room. "Ladies and Gentlemen, you've waited a long time for our Special Guest, some of us weren't sure it would work out, but put 'em together for a living Legend. Ladies and Gentlemen, MISTER STAN LEE!"

Cheers from a thousand throats all compete to be heard on the dais to almost drown out thunderous applause. The front of the room resembles the convergence of a dozen cosmic storms as hundreds of camera flashes crowd the room and Tim leaves both women behind to join the explosive welcome.

Siobhan and Nell look to one another across the vacated chair, shrug and stand as much to be able to see as to join in the welcome.

_**Excelsior**_!

Next Episode: Ventriloquist Affair. Why would a man agree to murder someone but then betray his victim?


End file.
